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Hey, Did You Know That Apple’s iOS Is The Most Fragmented Of The Leading Mobile Operating Systems???
From Endgadget:
Cast your mind back to the ancient time that was this August and you’ll recall Eric Schmidt telling you, with no lack of pride, that 200,000 Android phones were being sold each and every day. Skip past Steve Jobs’ snide remarks
about what’s included in that tally, and fast-forward to today, where
Andy Rubin is blowing minds with the latest, very nicely rounded, total:
300,000 daily activations. Yes, in spite of being the most fragmented thing this side of our 10-year old hard drives, the Android OS just keeps growing at an exponential rate. So Steve, any comment on today’s data? Were they counting it wrong?
Well, to begin with… Just how fragmented is Android, really? From Phandroid, Android 2.x Running On 83% Of Devices Accessing Android Market
Android Developers released its
regular report on Android OS distribution on Android devices accessing
the Android Market in a two week period, and the number of devices
running Android 2.1 and Android 2.2 have continued to become more
prevelant than Android 1.5 and 1.6 powered devices, with Android 2.x OS
devices now account for an 83% share.
It is important to note in these latest figures that Android 2.2 has overtaken Android 2.1 since last time we reported on the distribution. In addition, the percentage of devices running Android 2.1 is less.
Guess what this means? Well, I can feel comfortable in assuming that
Apple 4.x does not run on 83% or more of the Apple mobile devices sold.
That makes Apple the “Fragmentation Title Holder”! That’s right, Apple’s
iOS is more fragmented than Android. Throw that statement into the geek
fest argument you come across and watch the nerdy fanboi sparks start
to fly.
As I guaranteed readers and subscribers over the summer in Empirical Evidence of Android Eating Apple! and More of the Android Onslaught: Increasing Handset Revenues and Growth, the truth has come to pass… From Moco News: Apple Continued To Lose U.S. Marketshare Despite Spike From iPhone ..
Apple’s iPhone 4 did not give the
company the bump in sales it needed to put Android’s momentum in check.
Instead, Apple’s smartphone marketshare in the U.S. dropped by 1.3
percent in the three months ended in July while Android’s share grew by
an impressive five percentage points, reports ComScore.
And the lead has been increased since then, see Android Continues Its March To The Number One Spot In US And Global Mobile OS Sales Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
See also:
The Creatively Destructive Pace of Technology Innovation and the Paradigm Shift known as the Mobile Computing Wars!
- 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
- RIM Smart Phone Market Share, RIP?
- 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
- Android Now Outselling iOS? Explaining the Game of Chess That Google Plays in the Smart Phone Space
- There
Goes Those Fancy eBook Aspirations from Apple, Barnes
and Noble, and Amazon: 100,000’s of FREE eBooks from the
Public Library - How
Google is Looking to Cut Apple’s Margin and How the
Sell Side of Wall Street Will Enable This Without
Sheeple Investor’s Having a Clue - Empirical Evidence of Android Eating Apple!
- More of the Android Onslaught: Increasing Handset Revenues and Growth
- Many More Black Eyes for the Blackberry? A Complete Forensic Analysis of Research in Motion
- The BoomBustBlog Multivariate Research in Motion Valuation Model: Ready for Download
- The Complete, 63 pg Google Forensic Valuation is Available for Download
- iSuppli Continues to Validate BoomBustBlog’s Original Thesis: Android as the Viral Game Changer!
- BoomBustBlog Research Hits Another One Out the Park! Google up nearly 10% after hours, true blowout earnings unlike JPM
- As
I Warned in June, DO NOT DISCOUNT Microsoft in This Mobile Computing
War! Their Marketing Campaign is PURE GENIUS! and it Appears as if
the Phone Ain’t Bad Either - Reggie Middleton Wasn’t the ONLY Openly Apple Bear in the Blogoshpere, Was He?
- A Quick Peek Into the REAL WORLD Logic That Went Into Building the BoomBustBlog Apple Model: It’s Called Compression!!!
- advertisements -
Every one of these types of posts by Reggie is always the same thing.
Trying to jam apples together with oranges. No matter how you feel about iOS vs Android you can never steer away from the fact that Apples product(Hardware AND Software purchased together without an option) is entirely different than Google's product(Software that can be placed in a number of different products from various vendors that are NOT Google).
Every one of these analytic posts always seems to misunderstand why this comparison isn't really relevant when trying to judge whether Apple will loose market share. They will be in front of most companies that try and do what they do for the foreseeable future. Trying to argue against why people should or shouldn't like their products is asinine. If it was just a fad, then we would already see a huge drop in the number of people choosing to spend their money on Apple designed products, if they were doing something wrong then they would have been fucked long ago.
Apple is fairly unique in how it does business, you have nothing to compare it to in the tech sector currently. Google and Apple are entirely different beasts. Just because they both have a mobile OS product doesn't mean they can be compared fairly or even in a way that allows you to glean useful insight. Until Google is designing and producing its own hardware on the scale Apple is, and that hardware is a big REASON or THE REASON PEOPLE ARE ADOPTING THE OS(which is the case with the iPhone, because people buy the iPhone for it being "an iPhone" they do not buy it because they "like iOS", the general publics(not tech nerds) perception of a phone is still physical, the OS is interpreted as still something physical, they look at it, it is the phone).
Are they right? Who knows, it is hard to say, but I find a lot of this analysis off the mark because of the comparisons of products that are pretty different than one another, and entirely different at the retail transaction level. A person buys an iPhone, AND buys iOS along with it, they have no choice, yet they make the choice gladly.....why not think of why that is happening. You might find something worth analyzing.
Apple = religion and $$$$
Linux = religion and 0 and 1
Microsoft = calculator, chalk, ruler, bruised knuckles, $$
Computers = Pandora's box
Let's see...Intel 286 MHz, then 386, then 486, then...um...Pentium...because pretty soon the processor would be...
666!
BALDERDASH!
APPLE earns from $100-300 for EVERY iOS device it SELLS.
Apple makes at least $100 on each iPod touch they sell.
Apple makes at least $300 on each Ipad and iPhone they sell.
GOOGLE has said they "hope" to make $10 from each Android device that is activated over the LIFE of the device.
MOVE ALONG!
These are not the DROIDS you are looking for
I see room for Android and Apple.
Blackberry? RIM? Run for the hills!
What is really insane is chaining people to devices they pay so much money for in a year.
It is dehumanizing, turning us into droids, but we think we are becoming "free".
Each device is the link of a chain being forged, "Can you feel it now?"
apple's real weakness is that they're a one man show. as long as el steve-bo is around aint $hit GOOG can do. but once that's over the new evil empire (GOOG) will strike back...
for the sake of the world lets hope ESB lives to 110...
.
Today on my EVO I sent around 150 texts (during three different times of the day) to try and win an ipad on a local radio station, while running streaming quotes through the web and executed a few scottrades, checked out kindgirls, drudge and ZeroHedge, took the occasional phone call (dropped none,) while checking email, sent a few 8mp pictures with some emails, shopped around on craigslist and amazon....all on a rooted EVO with a highly customized ROM and theme, at the end of the day I synchronized my daily report using the (free with ROM) wi-fi hotspot....I love my Android. F#$% the ifone. If i won the ipad, sure I'd use it because it is a nice machine but I love all the customizable aspects of Android and when I used to do OTA updates it literally took minutes.
Geez, you mean I can't just have a PHONE to make CALLS with? I have to have advanced AI 128 bit 1800x900 GUI touch with Appz and the Psi-Mynd upgrade v3.7 with free rectal probe antenna inserts and bluetooth spinal-tapps, with more processing power than the space shuttle to, er, to do what again? Boldly explore new frontiers? eh?
This mobile warz thing is barking, a Pavlovian doggy-style response to advertisers pulling your, er, bell. The whole idea that there are legions of fans of mobile operating systems and heated pro-con debates on this or Aunty Juanita’s Apple Pies (with choco-chip custard! v2.1) is a bit demented.
Yeah, I know, “Oh, he said Jehovah! What?!! Blasphemer!!! Kill the heretic!”. … Oh, he said it again!!!
Look, it’s just a fucking piece of Halibut. Does this thing even make phone calls, or do I need an OS flash upgrade for that?
"Piece of Halibut"
LOL!
Yes, well said.
I don't think you can get a liscense for an Halibut. Eric the half bee, maybe. But not an Halibut.
element, great post. I got a regular mobil phone that works well, computers at the house and office when I need to go online, etc. And when traveling. Usually just a few hours from a clean hotel with free wi fil.
Don't need a GPS as I use...ugh"maps that people can read". How 19th century. Consider myself fairly tech sophisticated, but doing fine without 128bit.....'''lol
And, I spend less.
If you hamstring your os to previous hardware, you can never innovate in technology. That is why MfST is such a horrible writer of software. Too much backward compatibility means the system cannot move forward.
Meanwhile Android keeps chasing and copying Apple.
The whole mobile experience is near dead. Apple domination and how fast Google can rip them off. Boring as hell
how is Google chasing Apple when there is almost nothing that Apple can do that ANdroid can't while there is a dozen or so things that Android can do that IOS products can't?
Always love these debates but none of this is gonna matter when N. Korea (China) sets of an Electromagnetic Pulse device off the coast of California.
To find out more about the Imminent Collapse of the U.S. Economy, watch this video "Politicians Spending Like Drunken Sailors, American Dream Dead, Collapse Imminent" at (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpAbDtl_t1Y).
by Anonymous
you'd be smiling to if you got the bonus package these banksters got. what a bunch of useless criminal sacks of crap these individuals are. Unfortunately, they are in control now. But the ability of the American sheeple to put up with this crap? is well documented. We are absolutely screwed, blued , and tattoed. The only thing we can do, is obtain gold and silver to protect our assets. Then, sit back and watch everything collapse. And is IS going to collapse.
Ford was #2 but survived. GM was #1 and died. PEP was #2 and stock outperformed KO.
Who knows, but the premise that there will be only one survivor in the smartphone space sounds odd.
(IMVVHO)
And slightly OT, simple analysis of YOY earning trends and Q4/Q1 ratio last year to upcoming earnings suggests a possible huge upside surprise for AAPL on Jan 24.
was he saying only one left...naw, saying RIM and Nokia toast first, MSFT and Apple will compete, but Google will win...just like MSFT won for PCs
MSFT increasingly goes to bed with Facebook. What does that bode?
yeah but every apple OS comes with an overpriced (yet stylish) piece of hardware.
And the ratio of paid to free apps in the Apple app stores is WAY higher than Android. That said if the mobile advertising market keeps its growth trajectory, Google (android) will be killing it in that market. Which is of course thier core market.
I would argue that both Apple and Google are winning in different ways.
If google succeeds in transforming the app business into that of an ad supported model, they will gut companies such as Apple and maybe even Msft because they can drop the prices of the product to zero, collapsing margins throughout the industry making it impossible for those without the ad infrustructure. And momentum to survive. the paid app count in the appstore may be higher, but I use many more apps on my android device and pay for many more apps on my android device than my iOS 4.2 iPad because I use them much more with a zero barrier to entry and. Zero penalty. For trying the app out.
Given that the global ad market is 100+ billion per year, what you say is not an unrealistic proposition at all, economically.
MSFT only spends a fraction of its R&D expenses on true research (spends the bulk of it trying to keep up with its own legacy backwards compatibility nightmare), and even their full R&D is just a few billion. Google can spend much more plus can fully harness open-source as well, because unlike Microsoft it does not need technical lock-in to survive.
All that Google needs to achieve and maintain are kindler, gentler, more relevant ads - and it is achieving that today already. TV ads are far more annoying than anything Google Adsense serves and people are still willing to consume them.
Not to mention that Google products are inherently safer than Microsoft products - and that is because Google does not need their apps to be obsenely complex and viral. That gives them a strong technical edge in terms of being able to add new features, and people start noticing the security advantages as well.
When was the last time you had to run a virus scanner on Android? Any emergency OTA updates to not be part of a botnet lately? Any reports of businesses losing their full bank accounts because they were hacked? Android has none of that nonsense and it matters to productivity.
Gotta love the fan boys. Jesus H Christ on a crutch they are fucking Phones.
So Android is open source. Who cares unless you are a developer. Even if you are a developer all the dev tools for iOS are free. Smart developers will sell in all markets.
Android is winning the sales game because they are cheaper. That will change if/when Apple wins patent cases against Motorola etc. It will also change if/when Apple decides to sell with smaller margins.
Reggie love your analysis but when it comes to Apple I get the impression that you harbor a bias.
Sure, the XCode download is free, but the $100/yr membership (to sign/publish) and, most importantly, THE HARDWARE are certainly not free.
I can write for Android on any platform, on any computer I damn well please. Hell, I can write Android applications ON an Android phone. I'm not tied down to ANY development platform other than their SDK and the JVM. Eclipse, vim, emacs, notepad, whatever the hell I want. Windows? BSD? Linux? OSX? Yup.
Most android phones aren't cheaper. My G2 cost more than an iPhone. (and eats it for fucking lunch all day long, hardware-wise, software-wise, and network-wise.) You just tried to cost-compare a dozen phones from several different vendors on different carriers to an iPhone - fail.
Android (as an OS) is winning because it's just plain better, in nearly every respect.
I care and I'm not a developer. I care because with the open OS I can do whatever the hell I please with my computer since I bought it, not licensed it from Apple! I can use it to setup a mirror server for wikileaks if I want. i can load a custom rom and/or kernel if I want. I can root it and side step carrier tethering and excessive data charges if I want, legally, and who wouldn't want to do that.
I can remove carrier bloateare.
in addition, android phones are not cheaper, they are either the same price or more expensive for a given feature set, if that comparison can be made since android phones now have so many more features that iPhones.
People say androids are cheaper because they are comparing 1st and 2nd gen androids with the 4th gen iPhones. Comparing apples to apples shows price parity, as close as you can get at least due to the rapid distance in available feature sets between the two with the advantage going to Android,
bTW, I have nothing against apple. I'm typing these responses in a iPad, which is why there are so many typos.
"I care because with the open OS I can do whatever the hell I please... I can use it to setup a mirror server for wikileaks if I want. i can load a custom rom and/or kernel if I want. I can root it and side step carrier tethering and excessive data charges if I want"
You might be 100% right. But 99% of people in the world have no clue what you are talking about. 99% of people cannot execute an "ls" command. Why should an investor care about your specialized needs?
Because as a cutting edge user my specialized wants are a precursor to the future. 10 years ago I wanted a 3.8inch screen on my PDA, look where we are now. I wanted graphics capabilities when every one else was content with started flip phones. Future profits lie in where people like me lead the masses.
So now you're blaming Apple for your typos? Seriously though, you do come off as having a beef with Apple/Jobs. Perception is 10/10ths of reality. Just saying...
Obviously you have not spent much time with an ipad. The ipad CAUSES typos.
This comes from a guy who uses an iPhone and iPad, is very happy with both, and is very happy not to be using an Android phone for the moment. It may get to where I want to be, but it is not there yet. OTOH, my JBn ifone is close enough.
Android may win the way PCs "won" but I think that all the talk about Android being opensource and that being the reason why it's great is crap. If Apple were to offer the iPhone to all carriers (because they would be able to produce enough phones), noone would be having this conversation). The reason why Android will beat the iPhone in terms of sheer numbers is because the device is not available to them.
The vast majority of consumers/users of a smartphone just want it to work. They don't care about whether one platform has 250,000 apps and the other has 300,000. The vast majority of smartphone users - the ones who will make the smartphone sales business a runaway success want something which is quick enough, has the connectivity features they want with a simple UI, and a few things which appear to work like magic (think the StarWalk app on iPhone, or evernote. What they want to avoid is hassle. No WinMobile crashing, no need to read the instruction manual to figure out how to make it work beyond the barest basics (Android), no serious problems with hardware or utility function compatibility (Android).
Windows has, for almost two decades now, had more 3rd party support for the environment than Apple has. But people switch from PC to Mac, not vice versa (though if someone shows me stats which contradict that, I'll retract it). Not because a Mac has more features, is faster, etc. Simply because Apple has figured out what the UI means to people.
"Simply because Apple has figured out what the UI means to *some* people."
Fixed it for you. Apple's UX/UI is painful and annoying for people who do more than browse the web and watch youtube. Most of your hardcore Apple power users spend more time in the terminal than they do fucking off in GUI land.
You dismiss the F/OSS benefits of Android by saying something about Apple releasing to more carriers? WTF does that even have to do with it? Nothing. It's not the carriers. It's the fact that a F/OSS base like Android is exactly the type of environment that fosters and creates the "next big thing," simply because *anything* can be done with the hardware. The new killer mobile app that changes everything will not be developed in Objective C using the iOS SDK, I promise you. You'll get more of the same crap - Evernote and Angry Birds...have fun with that.
"Simply because Apple has figured out what the UI means to *some* |a lot of| people."
Fixed it for you.
You mistake me for an Android basher. I am not. I fully believe that the Android user base will be far larger than the iPhone user base in a few years, if it takes that long. I am, in the long-term, fully supportive of the benefits of F/OSS for computing platforms, but I think that people on the leading edge overestimate what people want out of their phone.
The vast majority of the Android setups I have seen look quite like iPhone screens. The ability to screw around with the visual presentation is far more powerful with Android (assuming one does not JB their iphone and have a modicum of ability to manipulate the environment), and the ability to create apps is far more widespread, and likely even deeper, with Android. For the moment, my reaction is 'so what.' The vast majority of people out there (including the vast majority of Android phone users) don't really want to do something more powerful than browse the web, tweet, shop, play games, and watch youtube on their 'smartphone'. In that, I expect the vast majority of smartphone users will not dramatically differ from the vast majority of home PC users.
People who have work-related uses/apps for their phones are in almost all cases going to be data-related. I have yet to find something that is on Android which could not be put into Objective C (though I have seen lots of stuff which hasn't been put into an iphone app). In the end, there is only a certain amount that one can do on a 3.5-4" screen, and until people start walking around with the 7" screen in their bag connected with a bluetooth headset (and that will be a lot of people at some point), the market is still there for a very large number of handsets which do things well enough, in an easy, intuitive way, with zero screwups, and significant hindrances to unskilled users screwing things up on their own.
The iPhone is not a good enough platform? For whom? The hardcore Apple power users who spend their time in terminal do so because that's where they want to spend their time. They do the same when they are on their macs. People who want the ability to use extreme apps on Android are adepts. They could just as easily put together their own theme for a JBn iPhone, or put together their own app. Hell, part of the fun of screwing around on the iPhone is that one is dealing with what should be more limitations. But I have seen some truly fantastic private iPad apps, but they are killer not because they are on the iPad - they could be on the Galaxy or anything else. They are killer for their particular users because of the new level of portability, AND the simplicity of the UI.
As to the next killer mobile app that changes everything, if it simply cannot be developed/adapted to iPhone use with Objective C using the iOS SDK, how killer could it really be? There is only so much that people want to do on their portable device for private use, where they are tapping on a screen which is 3.5-7"...
All in all, F/OSS benefits of Android are wonderful. Great. Fantastic. But the question about whether iPhone will/would be more 'successful' than Android in terms of takeup certainly has something to do with the sales model Apple has chosen (which involves not having the majority of carriers being able to provide it to their users). Total units sold to date of iPhone vs Android has FAR more to do with that model, and manufacturing limitations, than it has to do with the promise of F/OSS Android vs a semi-closed Apple OS environment.
Lots of people don't have iPhones not because they don't want them but because they don't want to change their carrier. Eventually, they will migrate to smartphones and be happy with Android. I may switch and be one of them. As long as it does what I want it to do, I just don't care. At the moment, I have enough non-adept friends with Android and problems that I don't want to change from my JBn iphone 4/4.1.02.
please, Reggie just has a beef with people who have blinders on, he is just trying to poke holes in common misperceptions...
Reggie, I have a lot of respect for a lot of your work, esp. with regards to housing, but I'm telling you, ultimately you will end up eating shit with regards to this unending crusade against Apple.
There is not crusade against apple, it's just that apple investors and users tent it be highly unrealistic. it's a fine company with a promising future, but it is also about to face the stiffest competitio of. It's existence and it is not in the catbird seat in terms of tech or strategic position. I can see that because I am objective, but it appears as if many are not.
Apple is like Bono... full of shit
You know, they were also the fragmentation leader when they completely dumped the 68k platform, then again when the dumped the PowerPC platform, and yet again when they dumped the legacy Mac OS 9 infrastructure.
I think Apple and fragmentation aren't exactly the same combo as for other companies. They are the most innovative technology company in the market after all. They are that way for a reason.
The opposite strategy: Microsoft. The only way they can support such extensive backward compatibility is by acquisitions and leverage. I gotta tell ya. It's nice to get a colonic sometimes, especially for outdated pieces of crap. Someone very powerful must be running a piece of software written for Windows in 1986 if you can still run those programs today.
Isn't one of the reasons we are in the economic bind we are in is because we aren't cleaning house every once in a while? Technologically, intellectually, philosophically, spiritually, politically, monetarily, financially, educationally, etc. Isn't this what ZH is about? ;) Thank god sense and reality is starting to return. The tipping point is near.
Hey reggie its junior here and you rock. You are my man crush.
Reggie,
Don't forget Android is open source, it will end up having millions of people developing software for it. Apple will not be able to keep up with the pace of development.
You can even develop/run Android applications in OSX.
Sub ~$100 entry level machines with better hardware than Apple. < 1 year
"open source... will end up having millions of people developing software... Apple will not be able to keep up"
This kind of thing has been said for years about the desktop OS market, yet Windows still dominates. Only about 1% of desktops use Linux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_share.svg
Why do you think this case is different?
Because Microsofts proprietary format combined with. A very deep, very compatible app creates a virtual firewall against the competition. Without the proprietary file format, microsoft would have probably lost the lead by now.
I noticed your failed to quote the states for the server side where open source reigns supreme, both in server OS, ex, linux and scripts, ex. Php.
microsoft and every other big company tried to dominate there but the lack of being able to lock clients in to a proprietary format wasnt there to he'll Microsoft, except for exchange server.
try to buy a laptop, that comes with linux. best buy no walmart no tiger direct no almost seems like a monopoly.
I get the feeling "Reggie Middleton" knows as much about operating systems as the typical programmer knows about churning web investment newsletters...
Don't ever underestimate someone you do not know personally.
For all we know, you can really be a Fat Ass - or just a dumb s__t.
Reggie has probably been doing this tech thing longer than you have been knows as Ass.
Good point but its not just Android versions, is the different versions that the device guys layer on top of Android 1 or 2 and the different hardware.
From what I have read, creating apps for Android phones is harder than for Iphone, but Google can, somewhat does, make up for it in other ways to developers. And its easy for Google to change at any time figure the right mix to attact sufficient developer interest in Android apps. App stores are importants, fragmentation is an issue, but really, how hard is it to make sure your app store shelves are stocked, Google will do just fine.
Having said that...even if we were to agree with Apple's snarky comments about fragmentation, there will be a point when a fragment of the Android market, like one device with one version of Android will be bigger than entire Iphone universe...
The Windows PC market was fragmented also, yeah, that really held them back compare to Macs.....
Its funny Jobs it doing the exact thing that succeeded and then failed for him last time...daring to use best of current technology, creating a great user friendly, pleasing expereince, making it a closed, neat and tidy system and selling for high margins until rest of world catches up but act like they'll never catch up, but they do.
Got to give it to Jobs tho...how long would have MS taken to do Windows if Jobs had not done GUI? How long would we have had flip phones and Blackferries if Jobs had not done multi-touch screen, app store etc..?
Just like potters of old who made everyday products functional and beautiful.
Eventually along comes ugly, not so durable plastic jugs that everybody buys instead because their cheap and they work, but then they are ugly, and then eventually someone comes up some nano-material way to copy old, beautiful clay pots, make them more cheaply and more durable...and so it goes..
Ultimately the battle is for the cloud and not the OS. Apple's cloud (.me/iTunes) sucks and costs too much money, so the race is now on between Google with Android/Chrome OS and Microsoft with WP7 and Windows Live. Google has a serious head start. Smart phones, tablets and PCs are just our way of reaching the cloud.
Don't sleep on MSFT. MSFT has better cloud client tech, at least in its office efforts. Google simply has better implementation. But if you expand past Office productivity, Google has some rock solid tech and implmentations. I recommend all try Office Live, it will blow many socks off. After that, try Google's Picasa and then store some content in the cloud. You're bound to be impressed.
And I still think Google Voice is the app of the year.
I'm not counting out MSFT. Actually we use Gmail/Google Apps at our company and are switching from Mac OS to Windows 7 this month so will definitely be checking out Office Live. And I switched from iOS to Android earlier this year. Google's seemless integration of its cloud apps and services between desktop and handset is pretty impressive and I'm wondering if Microsoft are there yet with Windows and WP7? Apple is out of the hunt and when Google gets into the tablet market seriously iPad will be toast too.
Reggie, I am real leery of the cloud. I just can't bring myself to trust any of them. And the events of the past week and the subsequent kneejerk reactions (of damn near everybody) aren't helping to make the case for the cloud either.
You can always run your own cloud off of your own or a rented server if privacy us an issue, but security updates and admin is a bitch.