Android: Google's baby ate 75% of smartphones in just 4 years
Seventy five per cent of smartphones sold in the last three months were running Android, according to IDC, though the iPhone 5 could well be to blame. The figure comes from the company's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, and covers July-September inclusive, so Apple's decision to launch a new iPhone on September 21 has …
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From the list of issues and fanboi howling on Apple support sites, iPhone 6 will lose quite a few people.
Choose choice. Choose Android.
effing bots
i start to think there are bots doing marketing on El Reg. That just sound like a line from THX 1138.
troll is obvious troll
iPhone 6? you're posting from 2014 are you?
Go on any support forum and you'll see people with problems. Go to any hospital and you'll see people with problems. Is the human body totally rubbish then?
"Is the human body totally rubbish then?"
Well, there seem to be quality control issues - and it's not just down to holding them the wrong way.
My phone is subjected to my 9-month-old son, who likes to wave his arms while holding things. And kindof forgets to hold onto said things in mid-wave.
Android has yet to produce something that matches the iPhone's build quality. I don't much care for Apple, so that leaves Nokia. Guess that makes me part of that 3.4 million exclusive club...
"Android has yet to produce something that matches the iPhone's build quality."
Android is an OS...
Empty arguments from Fanboys
We should have a top 10 list and a drinking game for lame fanboy arguments.
Put the whole "build quality" argument at #3 perhaps.
BTW, "Android" doesn't produce anything. Hardware vendors produce things. It's kind of like PCs. You're showing your total lack of technical understanding or even familiarity with Android devices here.
Re: Empty arguments from Fanboys
Ah pedants, forgive me. By "Andoid" I meant "all manufacturers that produce kit running Andoird". This includes the Nexus, the SIII (scared to even look at that one without fear of breaking it), and so on, and so forth.
75%\75%
75% of smartphones sold are android.
75% of malware found on android.
Is there a correlation here?
Re: Empty arguments from Fanboys
iOS/Android drinking game revision 1
Fandroid said "iOS 6 maps" - drink
Fanboi says "fragmentation" - drink
Fandroid says "holding it wrong" - drink
Fanboi says "build quality" - drink
Fandroid says "walled garden" - drink
Fanboi says "malware" - drink
Fandroid says "overpriced/underspecced" - drink
Fanboi says "better apps" - drink
Fandroid says "lack of innovation" - drink
Fanboi says "just works" - drink
Fandroid says "crapple" - drink
Fanboi says "Fandroid" - drink
Fandroid says "Fanboi" - drink
*Hic*!
Re: Empty arguments from Fanboys
Surely it should be
Fandroid said "iOS 6 maps" - drink
Fanboi says "fragmentation" - drink
Fandroid says "holding it wrong" - drink
Fanboi says "Poor battery life" - drink
Re: Empty arguments from Fanboys
"Fanboi says "fragmentation" - drink"
You can take that back now that Apple have multiple screen ratio's and DPIs - black borders anyone?
@JEDDIAH
Exactly! However, I used to quite like my old reliable '86 Ford Taurus, barely had any problems with it. Compare it with a colleague of mine to have changed 3 hdds over 5 years, while I had to change none over the same time period in the low-end Toshiba, not tainted with any Windows though and running only GNU/Linux.
(There is no Ford mascot here)
Spearchucker Jones
You have no idea...
My baby does the same, Which is the reason I replaced a busted iPhone with a Motorola Defy.
The Defy has survived being thrown on a stone floor for 2 years now, while my poor iPhone crapped out after 1 month.
With any phone, even the mil-spec Defy, there's some luck involved, but trust me, the iPhone was built to be thin, while the Moto phone was just built to be sturdy and waterproof.
No, I don't work for Moto, but I did feel the need to refute that poorly conceived statement
"Android has yet to produce something that matches the iPhone's build quality."
I wave holding my phone in the air trying to pull in the 3G signal (I live rural) when I sneezed. Phone took a nosedive onto tarmac road from above-head-height. I panicked as it was kind of new. Damage? Back popped open so I spent a while looking along the side of the road for the battery. Top left corner somewhat dinged, and the slidey part doesn't quite meet up. That was in April. I'm writing this on said phone now. I has worked okay since then.
It is an Xperia Mini Pro, built by SonyEricsson (not Android!).
Android is cheap and easy. It's a whore of a mobile OS.
That's why is gets everywhere like the village bike.
at least we have fun on the village bike, unlike the overpriced re-badged iPod all the dumb people like to take to bed with them where they're told what they can and cannot do.
(BTW this whole fanboy/fandroid riling up malarkey sure is a fun way to kill time at work)
"Android is cheap and easy. It's a whore of a mobile OS.
That's why is gets everywhere like the village bike."
Which make iOS the posh TART! Fur coat and no knickers. W*nker!
@AC 15:24GMT - So why are you complaining ?
Just stay away from it and you'll be safe then!
Re: Android is cheap and easy
Would I rather just enjoy riding the village bike,
or do my insecurities force me to look for a social status upgrade by virtue of iOwnership, so Apple gets to ride me?
As for Android being easy, true enough.
Cheap? I wouldn't mind. But while the Note 2 can be called an innovative and productive village bike, the price isn't that low...
So then maybe this explains
the concerted and perfectly timed legal attack from Apple and Microsoft on them.
15%
Of course Apple will be happy with 15%, because it's the TOP 15%, i.e. where all the money and profit is. That's their business model, don't you know? They could release cheaper products and gain the mass market, but why bother? You don't catch Audi or BMW making cheap run-arounds to compete with kia do you? duh.
N.B. I don't own Apple products for that very reason, but then again I drive a Ford and not a Merc, so I'm probably not their target market.
Re: 15%
Their owners like this THINK they are in the top 15% but behind their backs of course, everyone is basically laughing at them because their shopping revolves around buying whatever the salesman/television said they should buy.
Re: 15%
I'm not saying it's the top 15% in terms of the people buying them, or even the quality of the products. But it is the top 15% in terms of the price charged and profit made on each device (not to mention the itunes cut). Apple own that end of the market, that's what they aimed for, and that's what they got. It's a business model. Google has a different business model for Android. Both models work.
Re: 15%
Top 15%? Remember also used to be "there isn't a tablet market, there's an iPad market" etc.
Listen to a BBC business podcast today where someone was saying that the reason the US auto industry got into its current state was that Japanese manufacturers came in at the bottom of the market and the US manufacturers withdrew from that marked happy to lose low margin business and keep there dominance in the top and middle ranges. Slowly the Japanese manufacturers moved upwards and the US manufacturers didn't compete as hard as they could have because they were still holding onto the higher end with its better margins. Then eventually Japanese brands addressed the top end with Lexus etc and the US manufacturers had lost.
Apple may be happy thinking that they own the top of the market but while they may do now its not a given. Couple of years ago android phones were portrayed as cheap and underpowered ... hasn't taken long for them to catch up and perhaps in some areas overtake iPhone.
Re: 15%
The multitude of court cases worldwide would suggest that Apple is anything BUT happy with a meagre 15% of the market, as they join World + Dog in the new game of Gaining Marketshare By Litigation.
Darl must be proud.....
Re: 15%
No. Your silly overpriced consumer gadget is not a surrogate for a car that everyone here knows you will NEVER be able to afford. It's simply not something you can lord over the rest of us.
Plus, we're just not ignorant enough here.
We realize that it's just a Ford with a different nameplate on the outside.
Re: 15%
The reason that the US auto industry got into trouble was, at bottom, lack of R&D and poor quality control. I remember an NYT review from years ago that said "If you want to know why a VW Golf costs so much more than the US equivalent, try sitting in one for five minutes".
Apple's problem is different; there is only so much you can do with a handheld computer, and the competition will catch up. You can only optimise browsers and GPUs so far. But it is hard to turn a high margin business into a low margin business. The traditional US solution - find cheap assemblers - ends up with quality control problems, whether in Mexico or China.
The steady decline of the AAPL share price from its ridiculous high does suggest that a few brokers and traders have looked long and hard at their new toys and thought "hmmm..."
Re: 15%
"You don't catch Audi or BMW making cheap run-arounds to compete with kia do you? duh."
You can't get an Audi or BMW FREE ON A £30 CONTRACT!
Doesn't make iPhone very exclusive, does it?
Every pikey and their dog has iPhone, look at the q in the chip shop and see!
PIKEY!
Re: 15%
Did you read the N.B part of my OP? no, nevermind. Perhaps apple could address this by inventing a cheaper brand? Like VW own Skoda, Seat, VW, Audi, Lamborghini, and Bugatti. Maybe they need a cheap and cheerful brand to gain the low end without sacrificing the high.. Opple? Banana? bphone? Just the same phones made with slower processors, low res screens, and made of cheap plastic.
Re: 15%
"Every pikey and their dog has iPhone, look at the q in the chip shop and see!"
Said the pikey who can't even spell queue!
Re: 15%
Indeed, Apple do make money by selling overpriced products to a small niche. Not something that the rest of us should be praising.
Re: 15%
"Couple of years ago android phones were portrayed as cheap and underpowered ... hasn't taken long for them to catch up and perhaps in some areas overtake iPhone."
They were portrayed that way, but it was always a myth - the iphone had to play catch up for years to other platforms (3G, copy/paste, maps, even apps!) If Android was ever behind, this could only have been in the very early days - when other platforms (like Symbian) were way ahead of iphone anyway.
Re: 15%
In your analogy,
you somehow missed the spot where VW bought Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bugatti and 7 or 8 other brands from the money they made on cheap cars...
Ahh, the iPhone5 excuse...
People still using that? Really???
"the latest Android devices can complete with Apple's flagship in usability and style, not to mention costing almost as much."
Anybody who thinks that Reg commentards only aim sly digs at Apple, please witness the above quote.
The Register: Biting the hand that feeds IT.
Beware flying chairs in Redmond
"Symbian, for all its impending death, still managed to outsell Windows Phone by shipping 4.1 million, well over the 3.6 million devices running Microsoft's latest foray into mobility."
Re: Beware flying chairs in Redmond
Yes, but they were given away free in cornflake packets. It isn't exactly like for like.
Re: Beware flying chairs in Redmond
I find the Android unit of currency useful when discussing Microsofts handset sales per quarter.
3.5 million = By Wednesday lunchtime.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/05/eric-schmidt-there-are-now-1-3-million-android-device-activations-per-day/
Re: Beware flying chairs in Redmond
@ribosome
> Yes, but they were given away free in cornflake packets. It isn't exactly like for like.
I don't quite follow.. are you talking about the free WP licenses that MS has given Nokia?
And Asha too
And let's not forget - still more than what the iphone platform sold in 6 months, back in 2007. Remember when "one million in 76 days" was hailed as an amazing success? And that was with vast amounts of media hype and free advertising. Yet the ignored Symbian sold 10s of millions back then, and still sells more than that figure now with zero advertising, poor distribution in most countries, hardly any new models, and one year after it was officially ditched by Nokia. As does Windows Phone, despite WP being regarded as a "flop", whilst the iphone platform was hailed as an amazing success even in 2007, despite the poorer pathetic sales figures.
Also a shame that the article doesn't mention Nokia's new low end smartphone platform, Asha - IIRC, sold over 6 million in its first quarter!
Surely Nokia is also to blame.
They appear to have halved their market by switching to WP7, if 2 million of those WP7 devices are from Nokia.
So it would appear that half their customers jumped ship, a third are hanging on to Symbian, and only a sixth have gone for WP7.
That would tend to imply that the vast majority of their customers liked the system, rather than the brand, which bodes extremely badly for the future for Nokia. Windows phone really seems to be an alternative to an iPhone, rather than a replacement for Symbian. Android is the obvious move for a Symbian user who has decided it is time to move on.
WP8 would have to be a major success for Nokia to recover even to the point just before they killed their own platforms. This is made harder by the fact that whereas Symbian was their exclusive, almost as much as iOS is Apple's, but the WP8 market is shared with Samsung, HTC, etc. These other manufacturers also have no interest in WP8 being a success, because they are already part of the Android 75%, though if it is, they want their share of the pie. (And that is assuming Sumsung don't run with Tizen and make a go of it.)
I think even if it just beats iOS in market share (where's the flying pig icon?), Nokia will still have lost a lot of ground.
Of course Microsoft don't care. It is win-win for them. They get royalties from Android (I don't think they did from Symbian). So even if Symbian's share moves to Android is a financial win. And they might even be able to buy the remains of Nokia for some nice patents (or even buy them from Nokia before it goes back to making wellington boots or something.)
It is also interesting that the BlackBerry share is about the same as the sum of Symbian and WP7.
Re: Surely Nokia is also to blame.
"They get royalties from Android"
For now.
Android "free"???
While it may be a great marketing ploy to tell consumers that Android is "free" and "open", the truth is much more muddy. The vast majority of Android users will have indirectly paid Google when they bought their phone, all for the privilege of being given access to the Google Play Store, and so they can be in the wonderful position to be oblivioisly giving Google a 30% cut of all app purchases and DRM-lock-in to Google Play, neutering much of the interoperable nature of Android.
While Apple indeed are evil, the insidious nature of Google's evil is much more dangerous with so many users blissfully unaware of it.
Re: Android "free"???
"giving Google a 30% cut of all app purchases"
And this is different from Apple & MS how ?
Re: Android "free"???
It's different because you can get your various apps and items from GetJar, Amazon, AndAppStore, Opera, Mozilla, Handango, OnlyAndroid, Insyde Market...
Well, that's just a couple of minutes of searching. I'm sure you can find more.
Re: Android "free"???
Android, the operating system is free, you can get it here and use it on any device you like, as many times as you like without paying a penny to anyone.
Android the brand is owned by Google and if you want to use the trademarked name and Google's proprietary applications then yes, you have to pay Google to do so.
As for paying 30% to Google. When Android was first released back in 2008, only a small amount of that 30% went into Google's pocket as a "maintenance cost" for running the then Android Market. The rest of it was given to the carrier who's network the phone was on at the time of purchase as an incentive to get carriers supporting Android.
I'm not sure if that still happens but I haven't heard anything to say otherwise since and it is still hinted at in the Developer Distribution Agreement:
"Authorised Operator: A mobile network operator who is authorized to receive a distribution fee for Products that are sold to users of Devices on its network."
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