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Android Now Outselling iOS? Explaining the Game of Chess That Google Plays in the Smart Phone Space
The following is a synopsis of a recent Fortune/Tech article: Google passes the 200,000 Android activations/day mark
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- There are now a million Android devices sold every five days, and that number continues to grow.
- Google CEO Eric Schmidt told reporters
at the Techonomy Conference tonight that Android had passed the 200,000
unit/day milestone. That’s incredibly up from 160,000 at last month’s
earnings call and 100,000 at Google I/O in May. Google (GOOG) has
doubled the Android run rate in 4 months. - The growth explosion is being attributed to the Motorola Droid X
which is being marketed strongly by Verizon. He also was excited about
the Samsung Galaxy line which is being sold on all networks in the US
and in over 100 countries, more than doubling Android’s footprint. - At the current rate, Google is selling 18 million Android devices a quarter. If you add up all of Apple’s iOS devices in the just announced quarter,
iPods: 9.41 million (half-ish are non-iOS Shuffle, Classic and Nano) ,
iPhones: 8.4 million (including 1.7 million iPhone 4s) and iPads: 3.27
million you struggle to reach that 18 million. Technologizer put together Canalys numbers below which seem to agree with that assessment:
Android looks to have passed iOS devices globally and is pretty close to passing Blackberry for number 2.
The author goes on to drive the point home that I have harped on in “The Mobile Computing and Content Wars: Part 2, the Google Response to the Paradigm Shift” and “An iPhone 4 Recall Will Hurt Apple More By Opening Additional Opportunity for Android Devices Than Increased Expenses“,
and that is the pace of innovation in the Android space is literally
staggering and will be nigh impossible to match by a single company with
a completely vertical channel. To wit:
“It is really incredible how fast the
Android platform is growing. Remember, the first real Android phone
to sell in big numbers was the Motorola Droid, which debuted only eight
months ago. Since then, it seems like every month a handset maker ups
the ante.
In August alone, Verizon has the
Droid 2 and Fascinate. Sprint has the Epic 4G. T-Mobile has this
Emerald/Glacier thing coming and AT&T has the the Sony Xperia X10
and Dell Streak. This month also sees the long awaited adoption of
Froyo on major handsets like the EVO and Droid.”
These are all phones that are vying to knock the Evo off of the top
of the Android “King of the Hill” perch, and the Evo just had its OS
upgraded to Android 2.2. Before the upgrade, the most popular consumer
tech site on the web awarded the Evo the best smart phone title over the
iPhone 4 (see A First in the Mainstream Media: Apple’s Flagship Product Loses In a Comparison Review to HTC’s Google-Powered Phone),
and that was BEFORE the upgrade. It is likely before sometime next year
that one of these many phones will outdo the Evo in features and
functionality, and even if they don’t, HTC (the Evo’s manufacturer) is
sure to obsolesce their own product (as they have been doing for the
last 4 years) to keep the pace of this race nice and brisk. As I said
the pace of innovation in this space is dizzying. Development years are
being compressed, literally, into months – and the consumer is
guaranteed to benefit, as they are currently doing in real time.
Many commenters are lamenting on the fact that Google is not making
money on Android sales since the OS is given away for close to free
while Apple is making $250 per handset sold. Those who are looking at it
from this perspective are missing the forest due to that big fat tree
that is in their way! Yes, Apple is making a killing on its iPhone
sales, and it would be difficult to attempt to catch them with a fat
margined product. They have managed to produce both margin and volume
and have wrapped it up with extreme customer loyalty. What the armchair
pundits are missing is the power of reach. Google is developing massive
reach, and developing it ridiculously quickly. A byproduct of this reach
is the commoditization of the smart phone platform which will probably
cut the fat margined business model off at its knees. That is not to say
that Apple will be cut off at the knees, but they will have to alter
their business model for the competitor-less margin that they enjoyed
for the last three years will no longer be a given. It also means that
anyone else reaching for the crown (including Apple) will have to spend
more upfront to gain less per unit sold. This actually benefits Google,
for they are not in the hardware race, yet they benefit from each and
every handset, tablet, desktop and automotive unit sold. Google is
trying to become the new Microsoft!
In the meantime, Google ramps up the potential to push software as a
cloud service, downloadable software and interactive, activity/context
sensitive rich media ads and services to hundreds of millions of new
users. This opens up a phenomenal opportunity for Google, and it appears
as if many are missing the point because Google (wisely) decided not
monetize it immediately, but to let it gestate and grow. Do you remember
15 years ago when many felt the same about search and the fact that
Google wasn’t making any money providing search (pre-advertising)? Now
this is not to say that Google is going to win the Smart Phone Wars,
although at this point Google looks like the number one contender (IMO,
Apple, Google and Microsoft are the ones to look out for). Apple has a
very different and unique approach that is executing quite well from a
profit and market share approach. Google has very strong momentum, and
Microsoft has, by far, the strongest infrastructure. The only definite
that I see is that this is a very exciting time to be a consumer of
these products, for the competition is forcing everybody to push out the
best that they have to offer – very much unlike the time when MSFT ran
everything and which produced Windows Vista. Don’t believe me? Well, if
you haven’t had a chance to yet, check out the features packed into the
new Windows Mobile 7 OS – After Getting a Glimpse of the New Windows Phone 7 Functionality, RIMM is Looking More Like a Short Play.
Other perks from the Smart Phone Wars competition:
- You can bet your left ass cheek that the iPhone 5 will have an
Evo-sized screen with resolution to match today’s LCD flat screens,
accompanied by the opening up of the iPhone to standards-based
peripherals, ex. HDMI plugs and USB. The screen size increase is a
definite, but peripherals is a maybe. Die hard Apple fans won’t mind
that they have to jump through hoops to connect their device, but the
rest of the world will lean towards an Android device if they can’t
easily use their phone/tablet with existing hardware. Apple sees this as
well as I do. I’m sure they’ll find a way to gimp the standard
somewhat, but more open is better than less open. - You will probably see Nokia adopt Android or Windows Mobile on some
of its devices, or you will see continued market share decline. Nokia
makes some kick-ass hardware, and will challenge HTC if they had the OS
to go along with it. - Microsoft is guaranteed to extend their hegemony on the desktop and
enterprise server space to the handset, as well as their reach into the
consumer living room via the Xbox. The result? More functionality, more
usability, and better overall products. - The Android clan (which is nearly everybody who is not RIM, Apple
and MSFT, and maybe Nokia) will try their best to pump their R&D
departments to their limits, and you will be getting bleeding edge
products pushed to your door step on a quarterly basis until a clear
winner is selected – which will probably be sometime from now.
Must read Smart Phone Wars commentary:
- There Is Another Paradigm Shift Coming in Technology and Media: Apple, Microsoft and Google Know its Winner Takes All
- The Mobile Computing and Content Wars: Part 2, the Google Response to the Paradigm Shift
- An Introduction to How Apple Apple Will Compete With the Google/Android Onslaught
- Don’t Count Microsoft Out of the Ultra-Mobile Computing Wars Just Yet
- This article should drive the point home: An iPhone 4 Recall Will Hurt Apple More By Opening Additional Opportunity for Android Devices Than Increased Expenses
- A First in the Mainstream Media: Apple’s Flagship Product Loses In a Comparison Review to HTC’s Google-Powered Phone
- After Getting a Glimpse of the New Windows Phone 7 Functionality, RIMM is Looking More Like a Short Play
- Android is gaining preference as the long-term choice of application developers
- A Glimpse of the BoomBustBlog Internal Discussion Concerning the Fate of Apple
- Math and the Pace of Smart Phone Innovation May Take a Byte Out of Apple’s (Short-lived?) Dominance
- Apple on the Margin
- RIM Smart Phone Market Share, RIP?
- Motorola, the Company That INVENTED the Cellphone is Trying to Uninvent the iPad With Android
- advertisements -
MSFT is a poor producer. They have a milk run and they cannot innovate anymore due to internal structuring of management and poor quality of engineering staff. Plus some weird obsession with Product and Program management. MSFT is IBM and will end up that way. MSFT also has competition in their enterprise space(just like Android was a non-threat 4 years ago) with OPEN OFFICE, Apple iWorks(Keynote etc.) and of course the Google Gmail,DOCS system.MSFT is like text messaging-it's a cashcow thats on it's way out.
On the otherhand, you are assuming Google wants to killbash Apple which is not true. Apple iOS has the best renditions of Google services on mobile(maps, gmail iPad,youtube.)
There is no way Google wants to eat Apple's lunch in hardware and platform because Google is a classified Ads company(data snooper) on steroids. They just want eyeballs-on iPhones,ipads,androids whatever. If google wanted to really dominate Apple in the mobile space on a product level they wouldn't develop for iPhone so "well."
If google could make a toliet that told them when you shat, stool consistency,how many times a day and how much TP you used they would make one. There business model is not product perfection or innovation but en masse carpet bombing of the platform to get the eyeballs and data
Are there stats available on Android vs. Iphone sales for just the AT&T network? I would assume that the next logical way for Apple to grow/cut Android growth is to open up to the other networks. So, I think looking at what is going on at AT&T would probably be the best way to handicap direct head-to-head competition on the other networks.
Android is a marginally inferior product-it will be for a long time until they figure some unique angle. Chasing Apple iPhone is Microsoft's business model circa 1982. The reason people are obsessed over iPhones is that there is craft in the product. Making your own chipset, hardware accelerated graphics. Better power management, better(ironically) radios, better handoffs between wi-fi and PSTN and 3G.
With that said, I would be happy to own any Android device over a Blackberry and a Winmo product. Those products are on the dying edge of technology-until there is a miraculous recovery.
My point being that the PDA smartphone market is a growing industry-with Apple dominating one sector and Android mopping up the fumble called Windows Mobile. Once selling on 28 million phones a year.
Android was just reorg'ed because they have no penetration in the developer market yet, the user interface got lost on occasion and it has no cache yet. Also, Google is fretting that the hardware between manufacturers is not consistent and reflects badly on the platform.It's a super competitve alternative, but my point being that MSFT is the big loser here. Both products relentlessly stole from the Danger HipTop experience and backend service-Android being founded by the Danger Inc. founder as well, Andy Rubin.
Isn't that a good thing??!! Do you realize how much more money MSFT makes than Apple, for a much longer period, spread over a much larger base of revenue drivers and products making it much more stable.
You act as if emulating MSFT and getting similar results is a BAD thing!
Yawn... Mobile computing has a bright future, go long both Apple and Google. Reggie likes his Evo. BFD. People still line up and camp out all night to get an iPhone or iPad. Both companies should be able to do well in this growing industry.
Phone or device by device, Apple products easily outsell any singular Android OS product. If Apple made 20 products, each would easily outstrip Androids. Apple's business model is about making a great product with a high margin. Google's mobile strategy is to get eyeballs-on any hardware platform available. That's why Android is open-source. But it's a failed open source platform because their target developer doesn't make software and just takes Android off the shelf. No matter, Android is gaining marketshare from RIMM and MSFT but not from Apple. Apple is still gaining marketshare at an accelerated rate.
You haven't been in the tech game very long, have you cocoablini?
Apple has a very strong fan base. Interprises could care less.
What's an interprise? Is that from Star Trek?
Oh, how witty.
Keep studying the dictionary, at least you will be able to correct peoples spelling on a blog and pretend it means you know something.
The only people in enterprise (there, better?) environments I have ever seen allowed to connect with i-anything are owners, partners and top level managers. Everyone else who asked was laughed at. Personal use may be enough to keep a company going, but empires and control go to those who own the business level devices. The computer world is full of the corpses of those whom failed there. And sorry, I’d pick Google over apple almost any day and open source over proprietary whenever I have the choice.
Reggie, you are assuming I'm some sort of Apple Fanboy and an Android hater, which is wrong. You are also calling me rude, when I am arguing a different side of the story. One based in the Silicon Valley.Android has no hardware-accelerated graphics. That's a fact. I'm in the business and know both sides of the story here. The Apple success is because they built the product from scratch and have a vertical model where they can control software and hardware.
Android is struggling in hardware because they have little control over what hardware is or quality. The opensource software was to be given to hardware manufacturers to develop FREE because Android's revenue model is data-mining and trolling. Not selling plastic. The software was too complicated to personalize, so Android is stuck with the TMobile Sidekick model of making all flavors of software for everyone. The product is suffering because they have to make MOTO's flavor, Verizon's flavor, TMobile's flavor.
The iPhone is superior because Apple doesn't have to make half-assed flavors for different manufacturers and carriers.
Windows mobile I have played with because I worked in the MSFT mobile division for 2 months before I had to run like hell. These people are so stupid, they can't do anything right. They are so behind in technology,form factors and platforms I would say that in 10 years they will be selling 1/2 as many phones or worse. The Blackberyy has the same issue.
Quote from Android employee," We can't keep up with Apple now because they are 10 steps ahead of us and we are 1 step behind current selling products."
But, that doesn't mean Android is bad or not selling. It's a cost-effective, inferior product that is good enough to take Windows Mobile users away from MSFT. Not many people trade in their iPhones for Androids. Not until they do something original-which is not what they care about. When you copy people, you will always be behind.
And as far as MSFT being disparaged, please look at the MSFT KiN success. They sold a whopping 550 devices and have 200k going straight to landfill because Verizon hates them and can't sell them. MSFT Mobile strategy=FAIL
The problem is thqt despite your assertion that android is inferior I personally find the Evo to be materially better than the iPhone, and does CNET as does the iPhone defectors that I have come across. The froyo implementation of Android on the Evo is excellent and I own an iPad, 2 iPod touches, several Archos's, several zines including the yes and several msft, LGs and nokia phones. To date, the Evo bests all of them. I gave the new iPhone a spin several times as well.
The whole Android is inferior argument falls apart as I type this on an Android phone which I find to be superior and I'm about as brand agnostic as it comes. I'll switch back to msft if they execute well enough and will move to Apple if they open up enough to match what the Evo offers.
What is with the obsession over the iPhone losing to Android? I wish people would write about what they know and not about trendy nonsense.It's not a zero sum game except for MSFT:
1) The iPhone is the BEST-SELLING Phone in the US(maybe the world.)
2) It's a single form factor device-why would one expect it to outsell an entire platform of phones.
3)iPhone is a vertical model,and it is a hardware accelerated software. That means it's faster than Android Java presentation/UI layer.
4) Apple just released another iOS product, the iPAD, which sold over 3.5 million devices. That's better than the best-selling Android device, the DROID 1.
5) Apple's business model is not world domination but, "To be the BMW of the consumer device space." Steve Jobs-quote
6) Android being the broadest OS in the mobile space is about MICROSOFT and RIMM's LOSS, not about the iPhone being "worse" or less popular.
7)Android is following a totally different model. That model is Microsoft's license model except that Android is free so WHY WOULD ANYONE BUY A WINMO garbage phone.
8) Iphone/iPad is gaining marketshare. It has become the dominant phone in 4 years
9)Android is gaining marketshare via hardware dispersal across a variety of mediocre products. Which is fine, because it's an order of magnitude better than Blackberry or WinMo
10) MSFT has no mobile strategy except to try and rip off the iPhone, which Android is better at anyway. So obviously, carriers want to sell Android devices
11) MSFT is selling more WINMO phones, but losing marketshare hand over fist. The still sell 25 million winmo crap devices, but they are falling off a cliff.
I told you guys all this before. The fastest phones out there are HW accelerated for UI/graphics with Imagination Technologies SGX 530/535 GPUs. That goes for IPhone, IPad, Most droids, some Samsung high end models, etc,. etc.
A good developer can make either phone sing and dance. The difference sometimes in the quality of the graphics drivers, but Android and IOS both do pretty well.
OpenGL ES developers will like Android because they are targeting much more than phones - they are also targeting a coming wave of tablet PCs, MIDs, etc that will be sporting higher end hardware. Look for NVidia Tegra 2 tablets out there with 1GB memory, dual core ARMs, and NVidia's graphics.
One winner here is SoC technology. Look at TI, IMG, Intel, Qualcomm, etc. Yet to be seen is how NVidia will really make out in this space. They have invested quite a bit with a lot of design wins, but little sales as of yet. I expect that to change rapidly in the fall however, as many, many tablet makers have adopted Tegra2 and Android.
Yeah, I thought the Android devices had hardware acceleration. Here you can see an Evo outperform a Sony PSP in 3D graphics. It's amazing that no one would have even conceived of a cellphone with open source OS outdoing a Sony Playstation at 3D games just 4 years ago!!!
HTC Evo vs Sony PSP http://boombustblog.com/components/com_community/assets/video_thumb.png); background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; background-position: 50% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">00:20
This video was uploaded from an HTC Evo taken indoors in 780p HD. This is a video of an HTC Evo playing a graphics intensive 3D game along side a Sony...
Your a rude one, aren't you? Android is not hardware accelerated?
Because the entire platform of phones is powered by Apple's biggest competitor in the mobile space
The numbers just posted argue with your assertion and say Android phones are the best selling phones in the world.
Again, because the platform of devices are powered by Apple's biggest competitor
You complain about improper comparisons, then compare a tablet computer to a first generation cell phone?
Android's gain is all of their competitors opportunity loss, not just RIM and MSFT
Have you tried any of MSFT's new "garbage phones" before you called it a disparaging name?
iPhone/iPad growth was phenonenal and worthy of adulation, but Android is growing significantly faster, but then you cry foul - no fair to compare? Androids growth threatens Apple because it threatens to not only steal market share but possibly more important, it threatens to compress margins. This is what almost put Apple out of business in the '90s, or don't you remember?
What does it matter if a company rips off another one's idea? This is business, not show and tell in kindergarten. Very few companies have truly original ideas, and those that do rarely end being the ones to capitalize most on them in the end. Originality is not the key, execution is. For the past 7 years, Apple has kicked ass in execution, but many (and apparently you) have put the blame on originality and not mangement execution. Apple has also benefitted immensely from their competition running around in circles an butting heads instead of "ripping off" Apples successes. That, apparently, has finally come to an end and these companies will finally get down to competing with each other, which is what is best for the consumer.
I have four children all with spouses that are recent university grads. They are just starting careers and ALL eight of them use Blackberry Messenger.............they love it!
From an investment standpoint I have found good success following what my kids are buying. I bought Apple when they were buying ipods.........now it's RIM.
BB has been the business darling for a while, and for several reasons. Don't count on MSFT losing that battle though, nothing works as well with Exchange as what MSFT develops to work with it (nothing new, and if you understand software & MSFT you already know why). And don’t think most business give a damn about the phone for any other reason – it’s all about being able to tie it into the office, especially the mail and messaging system. And from someone who has worked in the server backend area, don’t think BB’s haven’t had their share of headaches that have kept system admins praying for an alternative...
Most techs didn’t mind the i-stuff because it was easy enough to connect into Exchange (one of the things Apple did very right on it from a corp. prospective actually), so in many places it was accepted as an alternative (mostly only available to higher level employees who ranked at the level where someone actually cares about what they insist on having...). The problem with BB is it has, as a rule, never been something a user chooses – it is a corp. I.T. department decision that is non negotiable for the employees. About the only thing it has over everyone else at this point is the security measures out of the box.
I have never heard anyone excited about their BB outside of the work environment – at this point it’s pretty far behind in regards to user experience...
Believe me, as soon as there is a truly viable alternative (in a corp. environment sense), it won’t hold its market share.
How's Google going to make money from Android? Places. Android creates people who can use Places on the move, and helps to ensure that there's no middleman who controls phone users' access to Places and/or their Places experience. Network effects will do the rest; that snowball is just starting to roll. Google will push other apps on/through Android too, but Places is probably the Big Score.
There's a very similar app in Apple's App store.
The phone and the mobile OS and the Google Maps application are just the razor (thankfully not the RAZR) while the Google Maps service is the supply of blades. The critical thing is having the one server-side map database that everyone searches with their phone and everyone puts their business' details on, much as ordinary Google web search was, and largely still is, the one search engine everyone uses and everyone advertises on. (But moreso.) Android's market share will help to push the Google Maps database into that position. (IIRC Maps just happens to be one of the few bits of Android that it's hard for phone manufacturers and mobile operators (and users) to get rid of.) And an increasingly dominant Google Maps database should in turn push aside map clients that rely on a different database.
Don't get me wrong, I definitely see your point and agree with it. Add to Google Maps, Google voice, Google docs, Google Gmail, Google translate, Google search and no telling what the hell else they have up their sleeve. When any kid (or adult) wants to search for something, do they say search for it, or Google it?
I am by no means an apple fanboi (I'm ponying up for a DroidX this week), but its not really a valid comparison when you are comparing one phone to the 30 that run Android.
Yes, it is a valid comparison - just like it is when you compare Mac sales to PC sales running MSFT windows. Android it the most direct competitor Apple has in terms of threat for market share.
except Google makes ZERO income from Android, or I should clarify, from the OS since its open source. Ads on the other hand are different. Still, I don't find the comparison valid with Mac and WinTel either. One is a closed system with a single manufacturer, the other is open to anyone with x86 architecture for the most part.
The single reason that Windows is the dominante OS on the market is because it has a multitude of companies building machines to support that OS, Apple doesn't (and in the past killed off its clone agreements) so, as such, Apple is not so much a software company as it is a hardware company.
Once again its a poor comparison.
tgs
it's a perspective thing. if you look at it from the vendor/income side, you're correct.
if you look at it from the market-share/user-base, reggie is right.
as proven with google's existence and success (over alta-vista etc.), once the apple user is gone, the google advantage can be leveraged - ever-so-subtley and a small amount per a large population can be a huge number over time.
i would redirect your argument to the probablity of 30 vendors of andriod with 30 not-quite compatible hardware/app bases, vs the one very controlled and stable apple framework. this is Apple PCs vs MS PCs act 2.
(thoughtful article, reggie, tnx)
"except Google makes ZERO income from Android" you mean direct info.
If you would look at what data Google is collecting trough their Android OS- they can target their advertisments to precise point.
And pardon my spelling, Google Chrome si refusing to check my spellings due to firewall.
Reggie... like I mentioned after your previous posts on smartphones, Google will prevail over all others. They are positioning Android to be the defacto OS in most devices. When critcal mass is achieved you will see them apply Googlization.
It is always a chicken and egg problem. Got to have the devices to implement the takeover. I am looking forward to an Android powered flat screen my Droid smartphone can control and tether. Say goodbye to AT&T, Time Warner and the other asswipe ISPs that have been sucking everyone dry and offering crapola for content.
Don't bet against the Miami Heat and don't bet against Google...
Yin-Yang baby!
Reggie
Is it accurate to even say android sales? My understanding is that it is free with hopes of future revenue based on an ad-supported model.
I think you missed the point of the entire article. I thought I addressed that issue in detail!
Right. I didn't see the forest for the trees. I also haven't seen Google be able to effectively monetize anything but search and they do have a long list of failures.
Froogle
Radio ads
They just junked Wave
I don't know if I buy the model, it hasn't worked for anything but search.
I have droid, iphone, htc HD2 and blackberry.
Iphone applications are still way better than android.
The phone is a marriage of soft and hardware. While android handsets are going strong hardware, they still need much polishing to be done on the soft site.
Version 3 is comming in october and than we can really compare.
Google on the other hand has all the information it needs to do what was in minority report. And their data info is more complete than nsa.
If google some how will manage to snap some social or music sites.... we can say any privacy bye bye.... They will know what we will do before we will do it.
An example of Android apps. This is 3D game wherein a 10 year old kid playing his PSP was shown Nova 3D playing on the Evo. He had never heard of the Evo before, so I told him to give it a try. He said the graphics were actually better on the Evo (yes, it surprised me too but I did see his point), but the PSP had easier to use controls (which my 9 year old son confirmed). The Evo's creen is the exact same size as the PSP's but has materially higher resolution. We don't need to get into connectivity and other uses. See a quick clip here:
00:20 HTC Evo vs Sony PSPAn example of Android apps. This is 3D game wherein a 10 year old kid playing his PSP was shown Nova 3D playing on the Evo. He had never heard of the Evo before, so I told him to give it a try. He said the graphics were actually better on the Evo (yes, it surprised me too but I did see his point), but the PSP had easier to use controls (which my 9 year old son confirmed). The Evo's creen is the exact same size as the PSP's but has materially higher resolution. We don't need to get into connectivity and other uses. See a quick clip here: http://boombustblog.com/community/community/Reggie-Middleton/Technology/...
Evo vs PSP= 2 different subjects.
One is portable computer and other is the game toy.
And i don't own and psp so cant argue much, but playing games on small screen won't go too far on the long run.
If you don't own a PSP then how can you comment with authority? If you owned one, you will realize that the PSP is a portable computer in its own right with hardware graphics acceleration, wifi radio, removable storage via optical disk and SD card, and ability to access cloud services and play 3rd party digital video media. It can also run Skype for two way communication and interface with other Sony products.
Practically every major entertianment and/or communication device is a portable computer in the year 2010!
I noticed that you have 2nd generation phones. Are you using an iPhone 3 or 4? The reason I ask is that Android has grown so fast that the newest one's compare quite favorably to the iPhone. iPhone has more polished apps than Android, for sure, but the most polished apps on the Android using cloud services are more impressive to me - with Google Voice leading the pack. It alone can be a game changer in the cell phone space.
The Evo and many Android devices like it, and probably to a lesser extent the iPhone (it is physically capable, but is purposely gimped by Apple to maintain customer lock in) will replace many gadgets: PSPs and portable gaming devices, media players (ex. iPods), digital cameras, e-readers and to a lesser extent netbook/tablets when it comes to light computing and media consumption.
I have some kids (who don't even know what the Evo is) say that the new generation of games actually have better graphics on the Evo than on thier Sony PSP, and the screens are actually the same size. They can still play head to head or over the Web through the cloud as well.
Remember, these are devices that you will have on you all of the time, so when you need that picture taken, that book to read, that game to kill the time, etc. You will probably always have your phone on you. Look for digital camera sales to wane as photographic and video abilities on these devices increase.
As for you comment on data mining, yeah, I would look out for the privacy issues in the not too distant future. Goog will be the new big brother if they win this batte.
Personaly i use iphone 3gs ( and iphone 4 will be delivered tomorrow, thank god it can be jailbreaken now)
At home i use HTC HD2 ( tmobile- sux) but on wifi i prefer better than iphone. ( and i use dual boot, winmo 6.3 and android 2.2)
At work i forced to use blackberry ( damn, there goes my luck , plus i have bb storm at home too)
Most of my decisions were based on the applications and network. Here in Miami Att has the fastest speed. Verizon is stable but slow. Tmobile- don't want even go there.
Before i made my final decision to move iphone i checked samsung galaxy S and did not liked it.
Anyway , to make the story short. Since i do use all the time Vtmobile for forex and Itrader for fxpro - the only option i have as iphone.
Was very tempted by Evo 4- sprint was nto strong enough in the south florida.
And for the camera- iphone 4 beats Evo4 easily. How they did that dunno, concidering that 5 vs 8 on Evo.
It was the software implementation. The Evo's camera actually takes better pictures in bright light where it can take advantage of the higher resolution, but degrades quickly as light dims in comparison to the Apple. I had assumed that the Apple used a bigger sensor, but apparently they did not, they have better algorithms in the software. If you take a look at both the videos and the pics of the Evo on 2.2 (using at least a class 6 card) you will see a dramatic improvement, although they still have an unncessarily low sampling rate on the audio codec. My best guess would be a licensing snafu or a dramatic ovesight, for this is very easy to fix. I haven't had a chance to compare the upgraded Evo pics and video to the iPhone's yet, so I don't know if parity has been reached.
This author is forgetting one important piece, which is user satisfaction... The vast number of Droid's user base did not pick the phone, but were rather given the phone. Also, Droid X is too recent to know, but we know that satisfaction on earlier versions was around 20%...
Everybody I know with an Android phone actively sought it out. The Evo and the Incredible remain sold out at nearly every store. I fail to see the veracity in this statement. In addition, the Droid is the most marketed, but the Ego is the one to compare with for it is technically and from a user's perspective, superior which is probably why it is always sold out every where you go.
I noticed adherents to any respective camp rarely spend any significant time with other vendors products. You should, for you may discover you actually like a competing product better or at the very least realize why the product your using is truly the one for you.
Nokia has a long way to fall before they launch phones with anything other than Symbian.
Oh come on, you know all this success is just from the cute bot in the logo.
Kidding aside, Google has demonstrated a lack of commitment and follow-through, even on its large projects. Doesn't that worry you a bit?
There are least 20 companies in China developing android handsets right now. Android might be one of Google's best tools in their on going tussle in China.
Android is existentially important to Google.
China is also Google's best asset. A lot of Chinese money and brainpower is working on developing their platform.