I, for one, would like to welcome our Android overlord In case the barrage of lawsuits didn't clue us in, IDC's recent report showcasing an avalanche of Android phones must. Android accounted for 75 per cent of all smartphones sold in the last three months. That's serious domination, but we didn't need to wait for IDC to tell us about it. All the trends point to Android's dominance …
Android is winning. People allover the world have spoken with their £££s... and they want Android!
While the Jihadi Apple Corp. continues to lose respect from all good people, Android is gaining in stature. And market share.
Meanwhile, Microsoft clutches its Win8 bog-brush and continues to work hard cleaning public lavatories.
Android WIN!
The one fan being.. oh, what's his name.. caps lock boy, weirdly monomaniacal and self-deluding.. one-note wonder.. Hrm.. RICHTO? I think that's his name. Mad as a box of owls, probably also believes in the tooth fairy.
FUD? You mean like this:
http://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792222/Mobile_Malware_Evolution_Part_5
http://www.hotforsecurity.com/blog/android-malware-report-may-2012-2194.html
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/MobileThreatReport_Q2_2012.pdf
http://www.ibtimes.com/android-malware-increases-64-q1-2012-sms-based-trojans-see-faster-growth-report-742530
http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/press/2012/Android_Under_Attack__Malware_Levels_for_Googles_OS_Rise_Threefold_in_Q2_2012
Please quote your sources which point to Android malware decreasing or not being a significant risk, and I'll give you 5 which show it increasing.
The only one guilty of FUD here is you, since malware denial can be considered a form of FUD.
So summary, everyone that's trying to sell malware solutions, has some stats to try and convince you there is a Android malware problem.
The REALITY is, unless you have unticked the "only allow play store installed", and clicked past the malware warning telling you that nasty things live on the uncurated Internet, then you are fine.
Google Play store is actually a very safe Android shopping portal for apps. It's when you download APK's from Bittorrent that's when the problems arise. And that's something that those "expert" sites aren't keen to highlight...
You mean only allow downloads from the super secure and safe play store...? This play store: ?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57476986-83/when-good-android-apps-go-bad-a-security-lesson/?tag=postrtcol;FD.posts
(fixed now, IIRC)
And re: the sources...so you're telling me that *everyone* that reports this has a hidden agenda...? Including these guys...?
http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/android/
If you're in writing mobile malware there is only one platform to consider.
You'll probably get seriously downvoted for this, but you do have a point. Especially in the light of the global economic warfare the US is presently engaged in, espionage is an *essential* tool so I can't see them missing out here - especially since it involves Google, who is still very pissed off at not being able to grab market share from Baidu.
This actually leads to a fairly logical question: given the resources available in the Chinese market, exactly how long will it take before they develop their own *local* OS? It's not like there is a shortage of choice, I guess at present there is still not enough risk or economic pressure to do this.
However, doing a Huawei on the mobile market is not impossible. It merely needs a good starting framework.
It's time to say that "critique" is not exactly the same as "criticism" or "observation", nor is it exactly a mixture of the two. Best avoided if misunderstood :)
Oh, I should say something about IT? Er well if Windows 8 dev tools (even just the phone ones) ran on Windows 7 then I'd probably have an app ready by now. This stuff is going to kill them, sad as that makes me.
Happy HTC Trophy user.
If you are going to put a growth rate graph in please do one with absolute figures too otherwise it is nearly meaningless. After all the growth rate from zero to one is infinite.
Also a timescale over which the percentage growth is calculated is also needed. I'm guessing annual but it isn't stated.
Indeed - the media have been following this fallacy for years, praising iphone since 2007 for large relative growth, and doomongering Symbian for lower growth, or worse, looking at change of market share (which is also meaningless in a growing market). The reality was that from 2007-2011, Symbian was (a) number one, (b) growing, and (c) often growing at a faster rate (in absolute numbers) than iphone. Symbian remained number one until Android overtook it in 2011, and sales didn't really decline until the WP switchover.
Strangely, they don't follow these rules most of the time when it comes to ipads - we should hear doom and gloom about its falling market share, but now the media seem to focus on absolute sales, because now that favours Apple, rather than companies like Nokia...
Well, yes, the graph is nearly meaningless. On the other hand, I'm dubious that "proper" figures and graphs would be all that meaningful either. Asay insists that jobs postings are a good indicator of ... something ... but his evidence to support that claim seems to consist solely of "there are lots of Windows jobs postings, and we know Windows is popular".
As a hypothesis, "jobs postings are a leading indicator of platform dominance" is OK (though the phrase "platform dominance" is a bit queasy-making). But it's no more than a hypothesis until someone does some work to support it, and so it doesn't do much to support the primary thesis that Android will come out on top.
(Personally, I expect Android to end up with the largest chunk of the smartphone market for a while - until the next shiny thing comes along - because it has a price advantage and many suppliers, which means marketing costs are shared. But that's just a guess. And I have no horse in this race because my current phone is Symbian and I don't care for any of the newer contenders.)
Wasn't the first iOS device the iPhone? Wasn't it released in 2007?
So how come there was practically no growth (from a staring point of 0) of iOS jobs before 2011, yet the app store had a quarter of a million apps by that point? Who were devloping them?
(I know the scale doesn't help, but those numbers don't seem right at all.)
And it wasn't called iOS until June 2010... which is, strangely enough, when that blue line starts to rise. Prior to 2010, employers looking for IOS skills were looking for people who knew Cisco routers, not phones. And prior to 2008, anyone looking for Android developers was probably in the robotics industry, or writing sci-fi.
The graph, as many others have pointed out, is crap.
"Apple made iOS development easy."
From what I have heard (I admit that I haven't looked into it as I'm not too interested) there are significant barriers to development on iOS which don't appear on Android. If anyone can debunk these, I will be happy to hear it.
First off, I have been told you can only develop for iOS on MacOS. This is a huge barrier to me: I don't own a Mac, and would have no other use for it. For Android, on the other hand, I can develop on Windows, Linux, MacOS and others, using any hardware architecture which will run them. In fact, I could even develop directly on Android.
Second, in order to use the app you have just written, you must either pay big bucks to Apple to put them on the app store, or jailbreak your device. For Android, a simple checkbox in settings will allow me to sideload my app and test it.
Let's take a very simple, trivial example. A couple of years ago, I bought my girlfriend an Android phone for her birthday. I wanted to make it special, so I wrote a very simple birthday card app just for her. Having never written an application for Android before (or even used Java in any form other than little bits of JS), there was a learning curve, but I managed to put together this simple App and load it onto her phone ready for when she first turned it on.
If I wanted to do anything similar now that she owns an iPhone which she doesn't want to jailbreak (assuming what I have heard is true), I would need to;
a) buy a Mac (or build a hackintosh), and
b) pay ££££s to Apple to register it on the App Store.
So, to me, it is Google who have made development for Android (at least for the casual developer) easy.
That statement was made in the context of professional software development, not someone writing trivial apps to put on their gf's phone.
Professional software developers should have no problem getting a Mac/Hackintosh or a developer account, especially when one developer account can be shared across the whole company. It doesn't even need to be a real company, for example I share a developer account with friends which costs me a princely sum of $10 a year.
You also don't need to register your apps on the App store, with a developer account you can distribute them ad-hoc by simply sending people the app file or using automated distribution systems like TestFlight.
But anyway you must have a nice girlfriend. My wife would not appreciate me installing apps on her phone without her knowing, especially ones latching on to BOOT_COMPLETE permissions (spyware comes to mind) so I just get her some real flowers instead.
"That statement was made in the context of professional software development"
I understand that. However, everyone starts somewhere. I may not be the norm, but I have nearly always started learning things outside the workplace. For example, when I was told I would be responsible for a system which runs on a Solaris box, I took it upon myself to set up a Solaris server at home to learn about it (we already have Solaris guys, but I thought I should know). I did the same for VMS, and that's the same way I initially learned about Linux, Windows domains and C/C++ programming.
"I share a developer account with friends which costs me a princely sum of $10 a year."
How big a group? I must have incorrect info, as I thought the cost was in the hundreds per year (the figure that comes to mind is $1000).
"My wife would not appreciate me installing apps on her phone without her knowing, especially ones latching on to BOOT_COMPLETE permissions (spyware comes to mind)"
I didn't do that. I had no idea how to back then. This was a brand new phone, and a very simple app which, when run, played a tune and displayed a few pictures. Basically an animated birthday card.
Even so, there must be some element of trust in a relationship. For example, I host her email on my server. I could read through her email if I wanted. We discussed that when I set it up for her. She knows I wouldn't because I respect her privacy, just as she wouldn't go through my post when it hits the doormat.
Even in a professional context, it's a big problem. Are you going to replace all your machines with Apple PCs? Or have them have to go and use a separate Apple PC, rather than the one on the desk? Or have everyone with two computers, taking up more desk space? As for "hackintosh", I don't believe that would be legal, and not advisable for professional use.
What if I'm a professional but independent/contract worker? Same problems as for the indie/casual developers. And it's not just about cost. It's convenient to develop on what's your main machine, rather than having to switch to a separate one. And what if I'm travelling? There are two problems here. Firstly, I prefer to have both a non-mobile machine (e.g., desktop, or large laptop) and a mobile machine (ultra-portable, laptop etc), to get the best of both worlds. So firstly to replicate that, I need to buy not one but two Apple computers. Secondly, if I'm going away, rather than taking just one machine, I've got to take two - or either not be able to do development, or switch to using the Apple laptop entirely.
Extra machines are also extra ongoing hassle in terms of admininstration, upgrading, etc.
No, the idea that IOS has easy development is yet another myth. I do fine with Android, as well as Symbian come to that.
And the idea of having to share an account to get by is laughable - no thanks, I'd rather have complete control over my own account.
...the rest of the 'droid makers are losing their collective shirts! RIM, Nokia, Sony and Motorola all had serious operating losses. HTC made a tiny profit, but is way down from last year.
A lot of those phones are low-end, where Apple doesn't compete. Yes, that helps Android spread, but it doesn't help the companies making handsets at a loss, nor does it do much to help app developers make money.
Bottom line, market share isn't the only way to measure this, and it's inexact. There are lots of premium brands that have small market share but huge profit. Ask Dell how the commodity hardware business has worked out since Michael Dell said Apple should be closed down. Or IBM or HP in the same markets.
In the long run, the real fight is about content. Amazon has the chance to run away with this. Amazon is hardware agnostic (unlike Apple). It sells it's own devices, but it allows its content across a wide range of platforms. At best, Google is in third place with regard to content.
Who cares about profit? As a user and developer, I don't care at all - if anything, large profits is a sign that a company is overvaluing their products. I'd much rather see as low profits as possible on the products we buy - this is a far more ideal situation, and what you get in a market with competition, rather that's stifled and lacking in innovation.
Only shareholders care about the profit.
Never in the most heated Windows vs Mac/Linux/whatever debate did someone say "But look how much money Bill Gates makes!" If anything, that was used as a criticism! The idea that Apple fans now pick it as an important point, because it happens to be the the one area that Apple score higher on, is laughable. No one cares - it's not a competition (for us) between companies, it's about which products are better, or which people are using.
Also note that Nokia's losses were due to them writing off assets that they bought a few years ago, IIRC. Profit/losses are often not simply directly related to that quarter's sales, but subject to all sorts of accountancy oddities.
"At best, Google is in third place with regard to content."
They have 75% of mobile devices, they're easily in a good position to do this. The shame is really that they're not doing more to push it - they could do much more to market this (e.g., why don't we see gift cards in every shop for Google Play, like Apple are doing to advertise). But even with their little marketing efforts, Android and hence Google Play have become amazing successes, and the dominant mobile platforms.
Last night I finally got my TOR exit node for Android running well enough to join the network for long enough that traffic from complete strangers flowed through it.. although the source is shameful, I think I should start calling myself an Android Developer now.. It seems to be the coming thing. At least it'd probably be more honest than 70% of the numpties out there making such wild claims..
(Traffic flowing through it was quite exciting, I even saw some headed for the Reg- clearly you're regarded as sinful in some places, congrats!)
The really interesting aspect of Android is for people who want to use it for vertical applications- who don't need to pay Google to license their apps and/or be on the app store. For them, the nature of the platform as a known quantity with a certain performance and stability level is the issue- coupled with a good developer toolchain.
Systems like these tend to dwarf everything else when they really get traction without Joe Public even realizing it.
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