Re: Well, why not.

"anyone working on a 5th? Ubuntu?"

Yes, Ubuntu for mobile is planned later this year. There's also Tizen (another Linux-based OS using HTML5 for applications, backed by Samsung) and Sailfish (developed from Meego), not to mention BB10. Already, Nokia's new low end smartphone OS Asha seems to be growing rapidly.

It's also worth remembering that historically, there have been plenty of operating systems, not just 2 or 3: Symbian was number one until 2011, BlackBerry was far larger in the past, there were also other platforms like Maemo/Meego. Then there is the fact that "smartphone" is really a marketing term that doesn't actually cover all mobile OSs, there are still loads of other platforms like S40 that have sold hundreds of millions. It's a big market, and I agree there's certainly room.

Re: OI! Random Fanboi!

But that's the problem with a walled garden - by locking yourself in, you've restricted your choice to one platform, only available from one manufacturer, which only releases one choice of phone a year.

Btw for music, Android supports MTP, an open standard, so you can "sync" your music using any choice of software you like, not just itunes. Or you can just drag and drop too.

"all my home devices are Apple."

Well indeed, Apple only really works when everything you have is Apple (and you're stuffed if they don't produce a type of device that you want), and then you're locked in even more so. With my new TV, it's effortless to share video and music with it, playing across the network from Windows PC and Android devices. An Apple-only solution would mean having to buy a separate box - more cost, more leads, and even if I was Apple-only, that wouldn't be any good if someone came around with a different kind of device.

Open standards have their advantages. Oh, and you'll have to replace all your connectors/speakers/etc with a new iphone 5 anyway...

Re: Maybe

The figures I've seen over the years showed a very small window, years ago, when iphone was number one in the US. So I don't know if these stats are just misleading, or it means this has been a reclaim after years of Android being number one.

If so, it's a bit sad, and odd that things are becoming so polarised, with the rest of the world dominated by Android. I guess that's going back to how it used to be, with the rest of the world using smartphones, and the US stuck with dumb phones (the only reason the original iphone was incorrectly seen as revolutionary by the media, because the US market hadn't see the phones that were way more advanced years earlier).

And I think it is a problem, because the media and companies in the UK seem to follow on from the behaviour in the US - so even though here we're all buying Android, with Samsung leading, we still have the media going on about iphone all the time, with companies often catering only for iphone users. It's even getting worse - it seems every other advert these days has a "get this for your iphone" on it :(

Although don't forget that the quarter after a new iphone release is always Apple's best quarter by far, and sales then slide over the rest of the year.

Re: Apple reducing their price - burberry error

More like Adidas - people think it gives them prestige, but no one else does. (And last time I looked, more people bought Windows x86, more people bought Android even at the high end - does sales imply thinking it has prestige?) People from all walks of life buy iphones - it's not the rich that I see with them, rather the people who see them as a fashion accessary. Although I do agree that lowering prices wouldn't gain them market share - there's also the point that lower prices mean lower tech.

I think it's a bit too early to talk about failures for MS, especially if you're talking profits rather than sales. Did they actually make a loss? It took years for iphone sales to get anywhere (yet oddly the media spun those figures as a runaway success).

Are Samsung tablets a "failure" too because they don't see as much, and are also priced in the high end?

Re: Must surely be game over for Windows Phone

The Reg only gives the data for Italy, UK and US, plus percentage share is a poor way of measuring in a growing market. It will be curious to see the actual figures for worldwide, and if there is growth on last year's - remember that for years, iphone lingered with much lower sales than many other platforms, only becoming mainstream (yet still way outsold by Android) with the 4 or 4S. I don't recall people saying that Apple should give up, because instead people were focusing on whether it was growing.

(I like Android personally, but I don't get the WP hate, when iphone got a free pass on the same things.)

Re: Is there an optimum level of apps?

Indeed - to some degree, an application download site needs a sufficient number of applications for people to regularly check it, but beyond that, for a developer less competition is better, and the issue is "installed user base" versus "number of applications".

I get 100 times the number of downloads on Nokia Store (with Symbian) than with Android (for various different apps). And as a user, the greater number of apps on Android just means more apps that basically do the same thing that I have to wade through (and far more that are ad-ware).

Though I think the article is misleading - the blog says that the deadline for the $10,000 revenue thing, but I see nothing about an extension for the $100-per-app port-a-thon(?), the last of which just took place. Still, great that it looks easy to port (apparently easy to repackage Android, as well as supporting the cross-platform Qt).

Re: Just consider one simple use case

Also, I'm surprised no one has mentioned e-readers. Actual e-readers (which the ipad is not).

An ipad to replace a book? Sure, there's nothing like helping studying than staring at an LCD for hours on end! Resolution has nothing to do with it, e-readers have a much better display. They're easer on the eyes, and can be used anywhere, including outdoors, easily. They also have vastly better battery life, on the order of 10s of hours (the idea that you consider a device that needs charging every day to have good battery life is interesting).

Of course, they don't do videos or Angry Birds, but the claim was about textbooks. The only deficiency is color, but for most subjects and use cases, this isn't an issue - most books aren't even printed in colour, after all. For most purposes, an e-reader would do the job much better, despite no colour (and why not offer a choice?) Yes, a tablet can do some things that an e-reader can't, but then a laptop can do plenty that a tablet can. A laptop and e-reader covers far more uses.

If the University *bought* the devices, then they would be able to choose which devices to buy (and hence support).

And ipads can be hacked too, and indeed have to be, for basic functionality, that Just Works OOTB on other platforms, hence there is a greater risk of that, if anything.

Not that I would agree with all this for an Android tablet either, it's just that it would make a pleasant surprise for it to not being Apple getting free money and marketing for a change.

Re: Apple is a locked down NIGHTMARE

I don't speak Apple, but I presume by "applecare" you mean the insurance that people pay extra for, which is available for many devices. (What is it with Apple fans thinking that something is special just because it has a trademark? You're like the people who complain other devices don't have "Retina". Most people don't even talk in trademarks all the time.) And no actually, they don't always replace it, as I know from my own experience.

Meanwhile, repairing something that isn't working is your standard rights under standard warranty, guaranteed by law! No wonder Apple make so much profit, when you hand money over for things like this.

(And being locked down doesn't imply more secure. It just means Apple get to ban competing products or things like emulators, as well as make it so you can't program using it directly, and even have to buy a special Apple computer to do so.)

Re: Best alternative is a Chromebook

And an ipad is different because? Laptops and their OSs are typically far better at coping in offline circumstances, than oversized phones that are called tablets, due to their history.

Re: Let me guess - the solution is open source right?

If it can be used on Android, then the argument for using ipads in the first place is void.

(And I've love to check it out, but oh wait, like most people I have a laptop. Even if it's not DRM-locked, that doesn't make it easy for most people - why cater for the minority first?)

Re: What's the alternative?

So the Universities support Apple by spending god-knows-how-much on ipads, because they support Apple by only creating content for the minority of Apple users? That's a circular argument.

It's all part of the same problem - why isn't that available for everyone, whether using a more popular platform like Android or Windows, or just something different like Linux (or indeed OS X!)

Re: Just consider one simple use case

If resolution is what's important, then the Nexus 10 is higher and cheaper. Just saying. Although, I suppose giving it's immense popularity, there is the problem of getting hold of one - Apple tablets on the other hand are given away free all the time.

Re: stop abusing and exploiting their student body

Ah yes, the good old BBC - 10 PRINT "HELLO" etc. Oh wait, good luck doing that with an ipad.

Well they could at least install a BBC emulator. Oh wait.

I don't think that argument works - the BBC had support in UK schools, but that was it. Compared to the vast amount of free advertising that Apple gets in everything from the media, companies offering services, to schools and universities in many countries. Plus it was at most one class with BBCs, or maybe one BBC per room - not one for every one of 10,000 students, which all have to be paid for either by tax or the students themselves, ultimately.

They're not free

No they - the University - didn't ask. That's exactly one of the points made, if you RTFA: "the author criticises the ... lack of consultation with students".

Also see “If only they'd have surveyed how many students own luxury cars,” the author wrote, “they may have decided to gift students a free Mercedes-Benz SLK 55 AMG instead." (The fact that people take ipads for free is not exactly a ringing endorsement anyway - even if people hate it, they can sell it.)

And they're not free. If Apple paid, then fair enough - about time that Apple paid for its marketing rather than getting it for free. Otherwise, if the University is state-funded, it's coming out of tax. If it's paid for by tuition fees, the students are being lumbered with this cost, whether they want it or not.

IMO the problem isn't a one-off decision by one university, but that this seems to be a repeating pattern where Apple gets a load of free money and advertising, because Universities decide all their students need one (I've heard about this from people in the US too). If this was MS, people would (rightly) be frothing at the mouth here.

People make the argument that MS only got their dominance on computer OSs because it was handed to them, yet we're now seeing the same thing for Apple on tablets, despite there being overwhelming evidence that consumers prefer Android devices. Everything from the vast amounts of free media coverage before it was even announced - whilst other devices go ignored - to the absurd number of "Win a free ipad" adverts I see. Now we have god knows how many orders being given to Apple for free. Just sitting here with the TV on, whilst writing this there have been countless free Apple adverts, not actually from Apple (did Sky get bought out by Apple when I wasn't looking? Sorry, like most people I don't have an ipad, preferring to use more popular platforms, and I'm not interested that my money would be used to provide services for the minority of Apple users).

It's not too much to ask for a bit of competition in the market, is it.

Given that people had to reset their brains to switch to Android/IOS (Android may use Java, but the set of libraries is completely different, and not compatible with non-mobile Java, or indeed non-Android mobile Java), I'm not sure support one specifc language is any more a problem than every other mobile platform which does the same. And HTML5 is at least a good contender for something that truely is cross-platform, running on all mobile and non-mobile devices.

Even with mobile platforms supporting native code with other languages like C++, it seems that most people prefer to rewrite applications in the "officially approved" language and API.

Having said that, I think it would be a shame if Tizen and FirefoxOS don't support other languages at all, as this does make porting things an awful lot easier.

Compatibility with Android is more if a company wants to sell this as a successor to Android (e.g., it would be important for Samsung, if they ever want to switch from Android to Tizen as their flagship OS).

Re: More PC over-over-reaction

No, they renamed the winter season of festivals "winterval". Since this includes things that aren't Christmas (including plenty of things long observed here like Halloween, Guy Fawkes and New Year's Eve).

It was not rebranding Christmas - and trying to spin it as rebranding "Christmas season" is a circular argument, as you're starting out with the assumption that the season should be named "Christmas".

Christmas is a festival on one day, not a season. *You're* the one trying to rebrand an entire season, that everyone else calls "Winter"...

The only people offended over "Winterval" are people like you - so they shouldn't call it "Winterval", because people might be offended? That's PC gone mad.

(And you cite the Daily Mail - that says it all.)

Re: More PC over-over-reaction

Like most things by people moaning about "PC", it's a myth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterval

And it seems to often be middle class white (Daily Mail reading) people complaining about "PC gone mad".

In the case of the story, it's perfectly possible to both (a) be offended and (b) believe it shouldn't be banned from Google Play. (Another point of view is that Google are free to not have things on their site - unlike a certain locked down platform, banning from one site doesn't ban it from the platform.)

Re: I'd have thought...

So you saw multiple iphones, and only one other phone - given that iphones are a minority of the market, this kind of proves his point.

(And I agree with him, and not just in London, and the point isn't simply when they're using it - I see people who always carry it in their hands, even when walking and not using it, and it seems to be almost always iphones. When they're listening on headphones, reminds me of an Ood.)

Re: Apple a Victim of their own success

Thieves don't go for what's more desirable (Android is the biggest platform, Samsung sells more Android phones alone, and the S3 is the biggest single selling model), they go for what's most expensive. With the added bonus here of being far more easily recognisable.

Re: I see no problem with premium iTurds.

No one cares about resale values of tech products - and those that keep their value only do so as there isn't newer stuff coming out to push prices of the older generations down. Amigas have great resale value, but I'm not sure that's much an argument.

As for reliabilty, this is the company that everyone says it's good, because you can take it back to the shop to get it repaired.

Re: Why does everyone assume there are only two smartphone price points?

But if your Dad does that with _any_ phone, it's clear that this hasn't happened because of Apple only having a few simple models, otherwise he'd only be doing it for those simple models. Rather he's been misled to believe that anything is an iphone, even when he has no clue what they actually look like.

The obvious blame is the vast amounts of media coverage that the platform got, when it's never been number one. Had Samsung (who actually deserve it, being number one) got that coverage, he'd be asking if it was a Galaxy. (Well, there's also this odd effect where for some reason, people always refer to Apple by brandnames - "posted on my iphone" etc - whilst everyone else almost always uses a generic term - "phone" etc.)

Re: Why does everyone assume there are only two smartphone price points?

I'd consider them smartphones (as a Nexus owner). Obviously not as good - but I don't get this idea of labelling them differently just because of that. A £400 laptop isn't as good as my £1500 laptop, but that doesn't mean I don't consider it a laptop. It is, by definition.

"Smartphone" has always been a terribly ill-defined name, and I don't understand why people and the media are so keen to restrict its definition to only some devices; it's pretty much just a marketing term, so if something is marketed as a smartphone, it's a smartphone. The original iphone couldn't even run apps...

Re: This is the same guy

True - though I can't help wondering that the same comment made for MS would have been voted up a lot more (by the same argument, I like having an alternative that isn't Apple; and more generally, it's nice having more than two choices).

Re: No, put it away

Indeed - whilst victim blaming is wrong, it's not unreasonable to take precautions, like not advertising expensive goods (as many advertisements tell us).

I can't help noticing that it's almost always Apple users who walk around carrying their phones in front of them - why this is, I don't know. On top of that, the fewer models makes them more recognisable as an expensive phone, and you've got the obvious huge logo on the front, whilst most phones are much more subtle.

Plus, I have to wonder why this is news anyway - smells like another "It's news, because it's got Apple in the title". Would the police be reporting this if it was any other manufacturer coming up to? Reminds me of the spate of "ipads getting stolen" media stories, that just act as more Appleverts...

Re: I shouldn't post this, but it's too tempting...

"I may be wrong, but if you compile something against public domain libraries, you have to render the source code available ? And cannot thereafter charge for it without paying royalties to the public domain library authors??"

You are wrong, competely. If it's public domain, you can do what you like with it.

If you compile against GPL libraries, you have to release source code to distribute it. But this is true with Windows and Linux. It would only be a problem if this was common practice on Linux, but it isn't - most open source libraries instead use the LGPL, which means you can link without having to release your own source. Then there are licenses like BSD which have no such restrictions anyway. I'm not sure there is a "standard API" as such like with Windows, but toolkits like Qt, SDL, Gtk, Mesa do not have any of the problems you claim.

And for all Free and Open Source licences, by definition you can charge for them, without having to pay the authors.

Re: I shouldn't post this, but it's too tempting...

I know there were some problems with this over operating systems like BeOS, what, 10-15 years ago, but do you have evidence that this still continues?

I mean, these same OEM companies make tablets too these days, as well as Chromebooks. If it was that easy, why aren't they stopping Android tablets and Chromebooks? Or if Asus and Samsung aren't affected, why don't they make Linux laptops?

I think it's a shame that Linux netbooks went away, though I personally chose to buy a Windows netbook, sorry.

And don't get me wrong - I dual boot Linux on my Clevo, and think Ubuntu is still good for most people, and wish it had more share. But I don't think it's all down to some alleged evil MS practices. The biggest problem is that it doesn't have support from any major companies selling computers - and it also gets very little advertising, or coverage in the media. These are the things that are necessary. Consider even for Android, whilst massively successful on mobile, struggled on tablets simply because they got virtually zero coverage in the media. Archos released Android tablets before Apple released their ipad, but Archos were ignored, whilst the entire media hyped Apple even before initially announcing it (remember "istale"?) Android tablet share is now growing, but only because the greater marketing and awareness for the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7.

(I also have to laugh at the people who "escape this", by buying into a company that then has control over the software *and* hardware...)

If we're talking about abuse (rather than simply being offensive or insulting, which should not be part of law imo), then these questions become clearer, and it also makes sense to me that in real life is worse.

Whilst many people may have seen the above comment, it's very likely that May herself has not seen it. The issue imo should be whether the person is abused, not how many other people see it. Many of the cases caught under the 2003 Act were not targetted at a person, but were simply someone being offended by the statement. An abusive comment made in real life might reasonably be illegal, but a video of that is simply a video of a crime. Unless you started emailing videos to that person directly, in which case we might reasonably see that as something that is abusive again, similar to harrassment.

Abuse in real life also gives people a much greater fear of violence, even if there isn't an explicit threat. It's harder for people to walk away from it too, you can't simply close the web page, if you're being followed by say a group of people hurling abuse at you.

The 2003 Act was completely poorly written, and should be scrapped for something that specifically targets harrassment of a person (if such laws don't already exist).

Re: Flexible phones.... why?

One possible application is much larger displays, that still fit in your pocket. E.g., open up your phone, to reveal a much larger screen.

There were some cool Samsung concept videos recently on the possibilities.

(Although even without flexible screens, I've wondered why no none's produced a dual screen phone/tablet, clamshell-style.)

Re: Being "insulting" should not be illegal in its own right

I think part of the problem with verbal abusive in real life is the fear of danger. If someone is walking at night, and a gang of guys starts shouting names at that person - well, in an ideal world they wouldn't care, but for many, it's hard not to be shaken or worried by that experience. This is different to online - there's the threat of violence, which also means many people would feel unable to retaliate. It's also harder to avoid it - you can't just close the web page or whatever.

(Not that I disagree with this change, there's no reason to cover "insulting", which is a much broader thing, and it's good to remove that from the law.)

Re: Being "insulting" should not be illegal in its own right

The harm aspect is covered by "abuse". The problem with "insulting" is it's wider than that - a 3rd party may be insulted, even if they are not the target of abuse (e.g., the horse case). And the state of being insulted is simply up to the person themselves, where as being abused is not - there must be some element of emotional harm, and it's something that is perhaps a bit more objective, and is not simply up to the person claiming it.

Are there any cases of "insulting" that cause harm, and should be illegal, that aren't covered by "abusive"?

I find it sad that recent laws have so much trouble getting this right. It's reasonable that say, harrassing someone via phone or email should be illegal, or perhaps randomly being verbally abusive in the streets, but that isn't the same thing as someone being insulted or offended by any message.

Re: 3 things

Thanks for the link. Though I don't think their case is helped by using the same kind of language we get from the likes of the RIAA, regarding copyrights as being some god-given human right (as opposed to a state granted temporary monopoly - so the idea that the state might take that away shouldn't be inherently dangerous).

Indeed, if this law was about orphaned music, and the opposition website went on about the livelihoods of artists, I can't help thinking the stance from people here would be rather different...

I guess there is the point that it seems geared towards favouring businesses, and seems rather a two-faced stance given this originally appearing in the DRA, which tried to enforce copyright law more strictly, again to favour businesses. But beyond that, is there a reason why people who generally favour relaxed copyrights should oppose this bill?

(My experience is that photographers often have much more pro-copyright views than say geeks.)

Re: Excellent!!!

Yeah, supporting "Let's try to destroy the most successful open source platform with software patents" is _such_ an improvement.

If you want to give me an alternative to Windows, give me a real one.

"It's the perfect illustration of why competition is important."

Exactly, which is why going from "one company for OS" to "one company for OS, hardware and application distribution" is not exactly a step forward.

Re: : ) Try *<:oB instead

Forgot the Digital Economy Act already did we?

I'm not fan of the Tories, but the real depressing thing is the lack of decent opposition, and it's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

On immigration, will they reverse the changes? No, because it was Labour who made immigration far worse (introducing 2 year "probation" periods for married couples, introducing the dumb "Life in the UK" trivia test that people have to pass, raising the visa fees to extortionate levels etc).

"Everything they introduce as a policy they overturn it almost immediately or it's demonstrated as unworkable by some grownups in the civil service. Either that or they just lie and blame the media for getting it wrong."

I prefer it when things are overturned or shown as unworkable! Unlike the years when the majority Government went full steam ahead despite opposition (ID cards?)

Governments are never "voted in" btw - and Labour's share of the popular vote wasn't actually any better, even when they got a majority. And no, I'm not a Tory! I just hate this rewriting of history that forgets that Labour do all this stuff too.

Re: A question or two

"Why no giant botnets or other malware on iOS with its larger market share?"

Because it doesn't have larger market share. Not anywhere near it (even if we included tablets, I'd imagine). Nor did it ever have largest market share.

Re: I was starting to think I might have been too quick to buy the S3..

If you get a TouchWiz phone, you'll get timely TouchWiz updates when they are released. No, it's not the same schedule as vanilla Android, but that makes about as much sense as complaining that IOS updates aren't on the same schedule.

True, you can't get a vanilla Android phone with SD slot. I never said you have perfect choice of every possibility. But there's still a lot more choice than with Apple.

Re: Apple coasted too long

I don't disagree, though your summary of market sales isn't accurate:

"so that when something more open came along, Android, people drifted towards that."

Note that iphone was never number one, and in fact sold far *less* in the earlier days, and only rose sometime after Android appeared (which grew much faster). Most people used other platforms (Symbian was number one until 2011), and gradually moved to Android; Apple's sales have increased meanwhile, but become completely out-dominated by Android.

Re: Is this for real? No keyboard options on iPhone?

Well, there are alternative keyboards. It's just that you have to run them as separate applications, then, get this, copy and paste into what you were typing.

(It's even funnier when you consider for years, they couldn't even do copy/paste.)

Re: Sales lost to

It's worth noting that iphone sales were low for *years*, and didn't get mainstream until the 4/4S really. But all we heard was tonnes of media hype, I don't recall it getting the same WP treatment of "Oh, still not popular" (indeed, instead the media spun it so that say, one million sales was hyped as being an amazing success).

I have no idea what will happen for WP, but it's clear that platforms can take years to become mainstream, and it was only Android that shot into massive success very quickly.

Re: Sales lost to

And yet Nokia overall still outsell Apple, let's not forget.

Re: We're bored Apple!

Funny, I already had phones that did that before the first iphone 3G (the first iphone wasn't a smartphone, couldn't run apps).

Plus even if we acknowledge some things as Apple strengths in 2007, your argument is biased by cherry picking those things. In fact, there were plenty of things that had to be fixed by Apple - e.g., 3G, apps, basic UI functionality like copy/paste. I could just as well cherry pick other features, and say some other manufacturer like Nokia fixed smartphones by adding Internet, apps, wifi, maps, GPS (e.g., N95), and everything since then has just been making it faster.

I don't know at what point a smartphone had all of the things that we take for granted today - and I'd argue that such a point is a matter of opinion in deciding what's important, and a moving target as new things get introduced. But it *certainly* wasn't 2007. And given that I would rate free built-in sat nav as one of those important innovative features, and not simply "making it faster", Apple didn't fulfil that until 2012.

"using your fingers not some stupid plastic stick"

You could always use your fingers. Pens are an optional extra, which only went away as capacitive screens couldn't support them, but I'm glad to see they're now a possibility again thanks to Samsung etc. Apple were only first with multitouch, not touch.

As for suggestions on innovations today, how about being able to use capacitive screens with gloves again (Nokia), or for the future, flexible screens (a recent Samsung concept video suggests a smartphone that opens up to be a large tablet).

Re: I was starting to think I might have been too quick to buy the S3..

People who criticise the iphone for no expandable memory *do* criticise the Nexus series for the same.

The difference is, with Android you have choice, so there's loads of phones just as good, with expandable storage. Plus I think people are willing to excuse a phone that's so low cost, despite it otherwise having high end specs. Meanwhile an Apple phone is the most expensive phone on the market, yet you have all these compromises!

Similarly there are plenty of Android phones with 4G if you want that.

That's just the "Mac vs PC" fallacy where you compare Apple to the very worst of other manufacturers. If we look at manufacturers (which most people do - I'm sure plenty don't have a clue what an "operating system" is, especially on their phone), then I could say people get the same standard experience on say, a Samsung phone. Indeed, I could say "If you get a Samsung phone, you get quality, but if you went with someone else, you can't get that guarantee", and suddenly Apple look bad, simply because I've lumped them in with everyone else.

"You don't have to wonder if a given App you download will run if its rated for your phone"

Whilst it's true it's harder to support larger numbers of devices - that's the downside of choice, but there are plenty of upsides too - there is not one IOS device. There are now 6 iphones, 4 ipads and 1 ipad mini, which is also non-trivial for many developers to support and fully test.

"Android is very much the phone as a computer, and that's good. the iPhone is the phone as an appliance and that's good too."

This statement is meaningless - what's an "appliance" versus a "computer"? Most people use Android phones as phones or appliances, without thinking of them as computers.

"Now watch me get thumbed into the ground for suggesting both sides have valid points."

But that's not what you said at all, you wrote a comment arguing only on one side. Sure, I agree it's much a matter of opinion.

Re: Um, no.

"The problem that Android has is the concept that one size suits all."

False - Android also has a concept of sizes, and developers have the same ability to provide different resolution bitmaps. IIRC the sizes are categorised into 4 sizes, which matches the 4 sizes you claim for IOS.

Not that providing just one bitmap is a problem, as any decent API can happily scale it for you - this is 2013, not 1990.

I know that Apple's platform unfairly gets more attention and support from companies, despite fewer users - I do wish this would change. I suppose we should be glad it's not as bad as the lack of support for Symbian (number 1 platform until 2011). But still the question remains - whilst people might write two versions of a UI, where's the support for the new 8" device? And as you note yourself, apps don't support the iphone 5's size, and have to be recoded. Meanwhile, new Android sizes Just Work, and an Android phone at 5" isn't that different from a 7" device anyway.

I would also question your numbers - my apps haven't been rewritten for larger sizes, but they don't need to be - are they counted in your numbers, or not? In many cases, a well designed UI can scale to different sizes. Please don't tell me IOS requires UIs to be designed in something absolute like pixels, that would be stupid.

A 10" tablet is still an oversized phone - an ultra-portable laptop with a real OS is always going to give a better optimised UI for the space, anyway.

Re: I'm no expert, but...

I'm not sure someone who spends £200 on a phone has no disposable income, but sure, I see your point. Though even at the high end, I would have thought Android leads, and Samsung still does well. The leaders in the Android world are high end phones like the S3.

Another flaw in your argument is that many of Apple's iphone sales come from older phones, which become available at lower prices. So if you're only look at the high end Android sales, we also have to limit Apple to just the iphone 5.

It's also flawed to equate price with disposable income - that just rewards a product for being overpriced. A classic example would be the Nexus 4 - despite its low price, it's still arguably the best Android phone (if not best phone) on the market. So someone who is rich would still buy it, but you would say they don't count.

This is just a rehash of assuming people don't buy Apple because they are poor - I have money, it's just there are better uses for my money! (And if I really had more money than I could do with, I'd give it to charity, not help one of the richest companies make more profit.)

"or provided free on contract"

Phones aren't "free", as you pay in the contract. And I would imagine for more iphones are sold on contract than Android phones, anyway.

Don't forget the rumours of an ipad 5 early this year. And just how many models of ipods are there?