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2. Android and iPhone kill off all the other mobile phone platforms. Android will be bigger (it will run on all of the "free" cell phones), but iPhone will stil

2. Android and iPhone kill off all the other mobile phone platforms. Android will be bigger (it will run on all of the "free" cell phones), but iPhone will still be "cooler", and will work more seamlessly with Apple's tablet computer. This is more of a 2012 prediction than it is a 2020 prediction. Mobile technology is evolving so quickly, and there are so many potential competitors (not just Google, Apple, Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia), that there is no way to know what systems will power 2020's mobile devices.

chaosprophet 17y ago
My guess (and hope) is that Maemo will become as good as or even better than Android. However, I still don't see anybody other than Nokia adopting it.
paul 17y ago
If the answer were obvious, the prediction wouldn't be interesting :) That said, I think this is like the early PC market -- many platforms, but most (Commodore, Atari, etc) won't survive because they lack purpose. RIM, Nokia etc will switch to Android or disappear.
- gaius 17y ago
  It sounds like wishful thinking to me. What does Android have that other smartphone OSs lack, apart from the Google marketing machine behind it? BlackBerry's USP is its email integration. WinMo's is that you can take your Office stuff with you on the road. Symbian's is that it's technically mature (and that isn't enough to be commercially successful). iPhone's is that it's easy to use works seamlessly with Apple everything-else. Android's is... It's Google?
  - rick_2047 17y ago
    Android's is that its open. So there would not be only one company pumping in resources into it but many small developers and even other big firms who want to use it as a profitable platform. In this Android gains resources,mostly free marketing and probably some great breakthroughs.
    - potatolicious 17y ago
      The same argument has been made about Linux in the past - and it has panned out; many individuals and companies pour resources into Linux development (Redhat, IBM, Oracle, etc), but yet it is still not a ubiquitous desktop OS. I've given up on the belief that anything will succeed merely on the notion of being open.
      - rick_2047 17y ago
        Android has what linux lacked -- Marketing. Linux didn't have the name of a company like Google associated with it, a name many of us trust (or at least know). Linux didn't succeed because there was no PR,no marketing and it was hard to set up. Android will not have to be setup. Also there is the case of compatibilities. Although linux was developed by 1991 but it didn't enter the mainstream market then.Android, on the other hand,is not entering a market which is already dominated by some other incompatible format. So standards can be built and dealt with.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
        gaius 17y ago
        "Linux did not succeed on the desktop because Linux as a desktop OS did not have corporate backing behind it" Not true. I cite Sun's OpenOffice effort as one example. Cast your mind back further and there was Caldera Network Desktop backed by Novell (who were a powerful corporation back then). Even today there's Umbuntu. So we can clearly see that many people have tried to make Linux successful on the desktop, and all have failed.
  - paul 17y ago
    Wishful thinking by whom? I have no stake in this. Android has momentum -- it's good and getting better and bigger faster than the others. It will be the Dos/Windows of the mobile world (except more open).
- kiiski 17y ago
  You seem to forget Maemo. Of course it doesn't have Google to do the marketing, but other than that I don't see why Android would be any better than it.

chaosprophet 17y ago

My guess (and hope) is that Maemo will become as good as or even better than Android. However, I still don't see anybody other than Nokia adopting it.

paul 17y ago

If the answer were obvious, the prediction wouldn't be interesting :) That said, I think this is like the early PC market -- many platforms, but most (Commodore, Atari, etc) won't survive because they lack purpose. RIM, Nokia etc will switch to Android or disappear.

gaius 17y ago
It sounds like wishful thinking to me. What does Android have that other smartphone OSs lack, apart from the Google marketing machine behind it? BlackBerry's USP is its email integration. WinMo's is that you can take your Office stuff with you on the road. Symbian's is that it's technically mature (and that isn't enough to be commercially successful). iPhone's is that it's easy to use works seamlessly with Apple everything-else. Android's is... It's Google?
- rick_2047 17y ago
  Android's is that its open. So there would not be only one company pumping in resources into it but many small developers and even other big firms who want to use it as a profitable platform. In this Android gains resources,mostly free marketing and probably some great breakthroughs.
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    The same argument has been made about Linux in the past - and it has panned out; many individuals and companies pour resources into Linux development (Redhat, IBM, Oracle, etc), but yet it is still not a ubiquitous desktop OS. I've given up on the belief that anything will succeed merely on the notion of being open.
    - rick_2047 17y ago
      Android has what linux lacked -- Marketing. Linux didn't have the name of a company like Google associated with it, a name many of us trust (or at least know). Linux didn't succeed because there was no PR,no marketing and it was hard to set up. Android will not have to be setup. Also there is the case of compatibilities. Although linux was developed by 1991 but it didn't enter the mainstream market then.Android, on the other hand,is not entering a market which is already dominated by some other incompatible format. So standards can be built and dealt with.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
      - gaius 17y ago
        "Linux did not succeed on the desktop because Linux as a desktop OS did not have corporate backing behind it" Not true. I cite Sun's OpenOffice effort as one example. Cast your mind back further and there was Caldera Network Desktop backed by Novell (who were a powerful corporation back then). Even today there's Umbuntu. So we can clearly see that many people have tried to make Linux successful on the desktop, and all have failed.
- paul 17y ago
  Wishful thinking by whom? I have no stake in this. Android has momentum -- it's good and getting better and bigger faster than the others. It will be the Dos/Windows of the mobile world (except more open).
kiiski 17y ago
You seem to forget Maemo. Of course it doesn't have Google to do the marketing, but other than that I don't see why Android would be any better than it.