Smartphone sales stall at ~3.5 million per day Smartphone sales have just about stalled at the disappointing figure of about 3.5 million a day, each and every day of the year. Analyst firms Canalys and IDC last week both released the results of spreadsheetery covering the year's second quarter, both finding sales ticked up a million or so compared to 2015's second quarter …
from at least one carrier in the USA. sign up for a Galaxy 7 on contract and get a free tablet.
I would imagine that lured a good few punters into the world of Android. One eager salesdroid tried to tempt me with one in a Mall in Portland, Or back in June. To his credit, he gave up when I told him how much (i.e. little) I was paying on my UK rolling one month contract with 3 that gave me free roaming in the USA.
Then there is the decline and inevitable death of Microsoft Phones as well a Blackberry.
Shame about these really because we need more choice of systems. IMHO, it won't be long before it will just be a choice between the Apple Walled garden or the Google/Chinese Gov data slurp on Android.
At least that's a real choice. Apple doesn't slurp your data and Android doesn't have walls around its garden, so while you can't get the "no slurp, no walls" choice at least you aren't getting choices that are claimed to be different but are actually the same as is the case all too often in other markets.
Instead of making a crazy claim and telling US to read the policies, why don't you quote the places that prove your claim? Google makes all their money pushing ads in your face, they have to collect personal information to make that work. Apple makes their money selling you hardware, and while they do operate iAd, it is a pretty small operation that doesn't even have majority share in iOS.
Apple makes money from selling hardware AND selling your details to push ads in your face.
Google just does the latter. Stop being a lazy clueless and go read the privacy policy policies. Or perhaps you might not like what you find about your overpriced status symbol phone....
Apple actually does slurp your data pretty badly for iAd, to be fair. And yes, iAd is small... but it's still there and it's slurping. Apple just aren't as interested in maximizing the payout from the data because of their business model - if they shut iAd down, it would barely impact on the bottom line, where as if Google dropped the data crunching from Android they'd half in size overnight.
Apple are also much more averse to sharing your data with other people than Google... but then, so are Microsoft, who were fighting US.gov in court over it long before Apple made it trendy (cue more downvotes :D).
It's also a shame because Windows Phone OS is actually pretty damn good by all accounts. Unlike the post-apocalyptic malware-strewn hellscape of Android or the Brave New World-esque controlling dystopia of Apple (or the similar horror shows that MS generates when it's dominant in a market), Windows Phone is pretty secure, light on the hardware, and pretty open - not that anyone has bothered to write any programs for it, legit or otherwise.
Blackberry's latest offerings have also been very nice, too. Shame that their company is now a byword for 2005.
"Not sure why the downvotes, looks like a pretty balanced summary to me."
Standard El Reg response to any positive comment about Microsoft, tbh. Most of the downvoters have probably never tried using WP prior to passing judgement; they just automatically dislike it. If Microsoft created a program which gave away free blow jobs and printed money, saying anything good about it would still receive a downvote surge.
I don't blame commentards for this - most of us have worked in IT for decades and have suffered so much abuse at MS's hands that it's very hard to admit when they do something good. It's like trying to agree that Stalin implemented a pretty good pension policy - it's true, but you have to be able to put aside the whole genocidal monster thing..
That is the main reason why Windows Phone didn't catch on. Once they made it free, there was no reason why Android OEMs couldn't have hedged their bets by offering both Android and Windows Phones. Few did, and those who did weren't really serious about it, because Microsoft's reputation for treating their hardware partners like crap preceded them. Thus why Microsoft threw up its hands with Windows 10, and decided to go along with the Google data slurp strategy.
Windows Phone lost market share recently because
(a) they switched to the Microsoft brand from the familiar Lumia brand,
(b) they released Win10 phones before Win10 mobile was mature which damaged their reputation (reliability and feature continuity are important for upgraders),
(c) they regularly change the APIs and internals. which frustrates developers, breaks compatibility and shrinks the size of the app store. It's tragic that now they've finally unified Windows across desktop and mobile, that their market share has tanked they've had to lay off so many developers.
Having made this investment, it hardly makes sense to exit the market, even if they abandon it to third party manufacturers. It's possible Windows Phone could gradually regain market share if they leave it to mature, as phone buyers are less tied to their mobile OS than they are to services like iTunes.
As the manufacturing cost of smartphones falls they will eventually replace feature phones in low end markets. So in the long term, this presents an opportunity to establish a presence in those markets. Given that Microsoft own patents that earn them income from Android phone sales, they could in theory afford to undercut Android phones.
I think they would be better off concentration on the tablet market, as the slate seems to be their strongest product aside from the Xbox. And it makes sense to put all their eggs into that basket to remain relevant, even though their captive SBM market is always ready to forgive their missteps. Trying to unify their platforms is a great idea, but keep it behind the scenes and do it right when released to the public. They were too much in a hurry to gain back some traction as the desktop market shrinks, and phones seemed like a great idea, at the time. Win10 is not a complete disaster, and unifying it to the slate tabs, and possibly any new platforms or devices is still viable. O365 needs to keep the feature set tight and the uptime at five nines. Azure too. This is a tough time for MS, but they have good market cap, and the ability to turn around the failures of the WinPhone and the dying desktop market. While growing their tablet offerings and keeping the cloud biz in the forefront. Then again, what do I know? I'm not a salesperson, or a market wizard. I just write scripts and make computers go fast and not crash. :)
I highly doubt the majority of smartphone buyers were familiar with that brand. Sure Reg readers and others who read the tech press were familiar with it, but the average person would be way more familiar with Nokia and Microsoft than Lumia.
You're right that changing the APIs multiple times hurt them. Windows 8 phones couldn't run 7 apps, and 10 phones couldn't run 8 apps. Worse yet, the phones themselves for the most part weren't upgradeable to new OS revs either. Android phones are almost always able to take new OS revs, the problem isn't that the OS can't run on it, but that the vendor sees no value in spending money to port it to phones they've already sold.
You might think it "hardly makes sense to exit the market", but all indications are that Microsoft is doing exactly that. They haven't officially announced it, but all the layoffs, and Intel exiting the market for phone SoCs pretty much seals the deal. Sure, Microsoft could use ARM SoCs in their phones like everyone else, however Continuum was Microsoft's best hope for turning things around but is only possible if the phone is x86.
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