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More important guess: Will Android pass Apple in terms of market share? They went from nothing to 1/3 of the way there in 1 quarter, pretty much. Depends on

More important guess: Will Android pass Apple in terms of market share? They went from nothing to 1/3 of the way there in 1 quarter, pretty much. Depends on how quickly Apple can make it to other carriers. If I were the carriers, I'd have a few backroom meetings to NOT offer the iPhone (lest they become dumb pipes!). If I were Android, I'd drop the rev-share for apps to 15% from 30% so developers make more money with less sales. And I'd make sure the carriers got a bit of the rev share. If I were Apple, I'd take that pile of cash and build out a cellular network ASAP. ;-)

dannyr 16y ago
The advantage of Android is that it has an army of hardware manufacturers that can churn phones of different price points. Android can be released in much more countries quickly than the IPhone since these HW companies will be the ones making deals with carriers in different countries. This is why I think it's a matter of time for Android to overtake the IPhone in terms of unit sales. If the 30+ Android models are actually released later this year, Android will likely surpass the IPhone early next year. The profits crown will remain with Apple though for a very long time.
- webwright 16y ago
  Maybe-- isn't the iPhone $99 at this point? I guess the winner in terms of phone sales could be "free" (subsidized by carriers). Given Apple's profits with the iPhone and economies of scale, they might just be able to compete with that. Give away iPhones, make it back on app sales?
  - lftl 16y ago
    Maybe things have changed, but I've always heard that the App Store is pretty much a break even proposition for Apple. The hardware is where they make all their money. If this becomes a race based solely on price I'm confident Apple will effectively lose (in the sense that they won't be able to command the financial success they have today).
- dagw 16y ago
  Android isn't so much competing on price point (the cheapest android phone is only slightly cheaper than the cheapest iPhone), but on feature sets. Want a large phone with a large high res screen, there's a phone for that. Want to sacrifice a bit of screen size and resolution for longer battery life, there's a phone for that. Want a phone with a keyboard, no problem. Want a slightly smaller phone with a keyboard, you can get that too. And so on and so forth.
  - kalid 16y ago
    But that's exactly the problem for developers. How many different devices are you willing to test on? Will your app's interface easily scale to all these different form factors? A huge advantage of the iphone is that there's a single screen resolution to optimize for.
    - usaar333 16y ago
      That can be checked in the emulator. Honestly, I am just glad that if I make an Android app, it won't be rejected.
    - dagw 16y ago
      If the rumours are to be believed then that advantage will disappear this summer. The iPhone already comes with two different CPU speeds and soon it will have two different resolutions, so any advantage on that front is rapidly disappearing.
      - hockeybias 16y ago
        Daring Fireball points out that iPhones with double the resolution will be out soon.
  - usaar333 16y ago
    It is significantly cheaper when you look at unsubsidized costs. An ebay G1 is $120 versus $275+ for an iPhone.

dannyr 16y ago

The advantage of Android is that it has an army of hardware manufacturers that can churn phones of different price points. Android can be released in much more countries quickly than the IPhone since these HW companies will be the ones making deals with carriers in different countries. This is why I think it's a matter of time for Android to overtake the IPhone in terms of unit sales. If the 30+ Android models are actually released later this year, Android will likely surpass the IPhone early next year. The profits crown will remain with Apple though for a very long time.

webwright 16y ago
Maybe-- isn't the iPhone $99 at this point? I guess the winner in terms of phone sales could be "free" (subsidized by carriers). Given Apple's profits with the iPhone and economies of scale, they might just be able to compete with that. Give away iPhones, make it back on app sales?
- lftl 16y ago
  Maybe things have changed, but I've always heard that the App Store is pretty much a break even proposition for Apple. The hardware is where they make all their money. If this becomes a race based solely on price I'm confident Apple will effectively lose (in the sense that they won't be able to command the financial success they have today).
dagw 16y ago
Android isn't so much competing on price point (the cheapest android phone is only slightly cheaper than the cheapest iPhone), but on feature sets. Want a large phone with a large high res screen, there's a phone for that. Want to sacrifice a bit of screen size and resolution for longer battery life, there's a phone for that. Want a phone with a keyboard, no problem. Want a slightly smaller phone with a keyboard, you can get that too. And so on and so forth.
- kalid 16y ago
  But that's exactly the problem for developers. How many different devices are you willing to test on? Will your app's interface easily scale to all these different form factors? A huge advantage of the iphone is that there's a single screen resolution to optimize for.
  - usaar333 16y ago
    That can be checked in the emulator. Honestly, I am just glad that if I make an Android app, it won't be rejected.
  - dagw 16y ago
    If the rumours are to be believed then that advantage will disappear this summer. The iPhone already comes with two different CPU speeds and soon it will have two different resolutions, so any advantage on that front is rapidly disappearing.
    - hockeybias 16y ago
      Daring Fireball points out that iPhones with double the resolution will be out soon.
- usaar333 16y ago
  It is significantly cheaper when you look at unsubsidized costs. An ebay G1 is $120 versus $275+ for an iPhone.