7 ms·

Android vs. iOS Growth

43 points by raganesh 16y ago

joejohnson 16y ago
"A dictum of classical physics states that in nature everything is continuous. However, in quantum physics everything is discontinuous. Both models of the physical universe have their uses." This is some good science here.
- martythemaniak 16y ago
  Nevermind the bullshit, It makes the writer (and thus, the reader) seem very smart.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
harshpotatoes 16y ago
This seems like a bad way to compare the two devices. In particular, love it or hate it, the original iPhone had to fight a big uphill battle towards adoptions. When android was later released, smartphones had already been quite well accepted amongst the masses, and did not have to fight many of the same battles that the iphone did. I'm not really sure what conclusion he is trying to go for...
- adovenmuehle 16y ago
  I think Apple generally goes for the first mover advantage. I think that's great. I don't think there is any problem with Android using the way paved by Apple and taking it a different direction. Competition begets better products at cheaper prices, what more could a consumer ask for?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - alecco 16y ago
    Apple is rarely a first mover. It wasn't with ipods and wasn't with touchscreen smartphones. They blatantly ripped off Ericsson and LG. It's not nice how apple rewrites recent tech history.
- dalore 16y ago
  Apple didn't invent the smartphone market. There already was a smartphone market dominated by Symbian. Symbian manage to screw up enough that by the time the iPhone came out they had such a poor UX that it's no wonder the iPhone succeeded.
  - drzaiusapelord 16y ago
    Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Palm were all players then too.
- Anechoic 16y ago
  >I'm not really sure what conclusion he is trying to go for... I don't think he is trying to draw a conclusion, in fact he specifically says "One should be careful about drawing conclusions..." Sometimes data are just data.
- hackermom 16y ago
  It's actually about 15 devices, one of which is Apple's, and the remaining 14 belonging to other companies. For some reason people were always quick to illuminate this important detail when it came to comparing other mobile platforms in the past (BBOS vs Symbian etc.), but in this particular "battle" no one wants to touch the fact that Apple are entirely alone on the iOS side, facing all of the other giants on the market.
  - drzaiusapelord 16y ago
    Err, its not one device, its ipad, ipod, and iphone. So its three devices and if you count versions, dozens.
    - hackermom 16y ago
      Well, by that metric, the Android camp is up to well over 100 devices. I guess you got my point anyway :) (one vendor vs craploads of vendors)
- kjksf 16y ago
  Based on iPhone's first day sales, their "uphill battle towards adoption" looked more like a rolling down the hill. With a help of a rocket engine.
muhfuhkuh 16y ago
Perhaps _this_ is finally the moment where Linux (to steal a quote from Wayne Gretzky as to why he was so dominant in hockey) skated to where the puck is going rather than where it is. It was always playing catchup to Windows with its entrenched cash cow and monopolistic control over PC manufacturers; though it did find footing where MS wasn't: The server room. As someone in a 50/50 mix household of iOS and Android products, this is the kind of competition I relish in an industry. No one trying to box another out, neither one with any monopolistic tactics to crush the other; all on equal footing both financially and culturally. iOS attacks the high end with simplicity and seamless usability; Android with open configurability (in most instances) and endless options to make it yours.
yhlasx 16y ago
No matter what, Unlike Google, Apple is making lots of money from its ios devices. Android feels geeky thus limits its audience. Ios is very well polished and fancy. Maybe some people might not like it, but still ios has a lot larger audience than Android. This article sounds like saying "Both are great but android is catching up and will beat ios someday soon". I highly doubt that. Until Google learns doing marketing as well as Apple, apple will be leading the market and eating largest piece of pie.
- sudont 16y ago
  "thus limits its audience" I must disagree on this. Android's adoption is both in high-end smartphones like the Nexus, as well as a lot of low-end, with-the-plan phones. What limits it's use is the geeky feeling you talk about. I know a large segment of users who use Android, and only the technical ones are those who use features: everybody else basically has a dumb phone with a big screen and extra 20/month plan. The monopoly preventing the same gold rush on app development in Android that iOS has is that: paying users. They may be coming soon, though. I know plenty of iOS users about to jump ship to Android. My mom will buy an app (iOS), my friends who develop software for a living won't (Gingerbread).
  - slouch 16y ago
    i disagree with both of you. my non-nerd friends have taught me how to use my android device way better than i was able to teach myself. i never thought to look for a text pop-up app, i just figured that functionality was on my old phone and not my new one. i didn't consider the advanced task killer widget would put a button on one of my home screens and take care of the work i put into the manage applications menu force killing things i don't want anymore. i have two girlfriends that use android way smarter than me, the one who is reading an android development book.
    - theBobMcCormick 16y ago
      If your friends are teaching you to use advanced task killer, they're teaching you wrong. That shit is snake oil. See these links for more info: http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/ http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-wi... http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-...
martythemaniak 16y ago
It's not a step function, it's just very very rapid growth. It helps if you think of the G1 and Android 1.0 (first 5-6 quarters) as "Android Beta", since it could not even play to its intended strengths (different devices and carriers). Also, these kinds of observations don't make much sense - neither company discloses anything more than carefully worded tidbits. End-of-quarter sales numbers are the way to go.
roc 16y ago
The tricky part with Android adoption, is that it's so tightly coupled with manufacturer adoption. Can we intelligently say that someone buying the Motorola Droid X is choosing Android? or are they choosing Motorola? (or are they choosing Verizon?) Geeks seem to ignore this point; likely because we'd been making fun of feature-phones for years before the smartphones hit. But those phones were well-liked by a great many people and had non-trivial brand loyalty.
- MatthewPhillips 16y ago
  Does that matter as far as future growth is concerned? Motorola isn't going to stop producing Android phones, nor is Verizon.
  - roc 16y ago
    It absolutely matters. Remember when Vista was "the fastest selling operating system ever" [1]? Would it have been wise to read those first months of sales as indicative of interest-in and preference-for Vista and thus safe to extrapolate? Or was it due to other, stronger factors (bundling, brand-recognition) that have very clear analogues in the phone market? [1] http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749132%28WS.10%29.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749132%28WS.10%...
    - MatthewPhillips 16y ago
      The article doesn't extrapolate Android sales based on the current growth trajectory; in fact it specifically warns against doing that. The iOS growth shows a discernible pattern, whereas the Android chart doesn't yet do that. However the analogy to Vista doesn't strike me as valid, for a number of reasons. Vista is a version of Windows much like Froyo is a version of Android. Vista's growth was diffused by people not buying new computers; not because they chose computers other than those running Windows. Additionally computer manufacturers were more willing to continue to release computers still running XP; this is not analogous to the phone world (there is no demand for older versions of Android). I guess what you are possibly suggesting is that Android adoption has been based on reasons apart from a desire to own an Android device; this may or may not be true. We won't be able to judge that until the wave of adopting users have come off their current contracts and are able to upgrade to a new phone. However this article specifically warns against extrapolating the Android data points as they currently are shown.
pkaler 16y ago
The original blog post is called "The Android Step Function". Taking the name of the graph, "Android vs. iOS Growth", and applying it as the title of the new story is disingenuous. The entire point of the article is that there is seasonality to the growth of Android. The point of the article is the shapes of the graphs not the absolute values.
protomyth 16y ago
At this point, I thought we would have actual sales numbers of Android devices (not activations). I am a little curious why this isn't happening.
- adolph 16y ago
  Given the number of suppliers and retail options, and the various metrics they use to measure themselves, I bet it is very difficult to tell.
  - protomyth 16y ago
    True, but I get the feeling someone at Google knows how many copies of their software (the official Google apps) are out there. I just don't trust activations as any real metric.
grandalf 16y ago
I really think this is going to end up hurting Google in the long run. Quality control for Android phones is horrible and handset manufacturers add their own garbageware to the phones. Google is banking on consumers being too naive to realize they are getting a substantially inferior experience. Not a good bet in my opinion. Apple is being stupid here by not calling Google's bluff and lowering prices even more aggressively. Nobody who used both phones side by side for a few days would prefer Android.
- mcantelon 16y ago
  >Not a good bet in my opinion. McDonalds in one of the most popular restaurants in the world. Is it because it has better food?
  - grandalf 16y ago
    Two points in response: 1) Many people love/crave McDonalds. The menu is optimized to appeal to human cravings for fats, carbs, and sweets. 2) McDonalds is also very inexpensive. Android phones sell for nearly the same price as iPhones.
    - mcantelon 16y ago
      >2) McDonalds is also very inexpensive. Android phones sell for nearly the same price as iPhones. Although I'd love to see an $87 handset from Apple, I don't see it happening when Apple is committed to going it alone. http://armdevices.net/2011/04/11/best-of-shenzhen-87-android-3-5-capacitive-phone-mtk6516-fg8/ http://armdevices.net/2011/04/11/best-of-shenzhen-87-android... Android's many partners strategy means it gets to capitalize on unexpected resources and niches that Apple's central planning mentality won't be able to access.
      - grandalf 16y ago
        Isn't an iPhone4 $99 with a contract?

43 points by raganesh 16y ago

"A dictum of classical physics states that in nature everything is continuous. However, in quantum physics everything is discontinuous. Both models of the physical universe have their uses." This is some good science here.

martythemaniak 16y ago
Nevermind the bullshit, It makes the writer (and thus, the reader) seem very smart.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

harshpotatoes 16y ago

This seems like a bad way to compare the two devices. In particular, love it or hate it, the original iPhone had to fight a big uphill battle towards adoptions. When android was later released, smartphones had already been quite well accepted amongst the masses, and did not have to fight many of the same battles that the iphone did. I'm not really sure what conclusion he is trying to go for...

adovenmuehle 16y ago
I think Apple generally goes for the first mover advantage. I think that's great. I don't think there is any problem with Android using the way paved by Apple and taking it a different direction. Competition begets better products at cheaper prices, what more could a consumer ask for?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- alecco 16y ago
  Apple is rarely a first mover. It wasn't with ipods and wasn't with touchscreen smartphones. They blatantly ripped off Ericsson and LG. It's not nice how apple rewrites recent tech history.
dalore 16y ago
Apple didn't invent the smartphone market. There already was a smartphone market dominated by Symbian. Symbian manage to screw up enough that by the time the iPhone came out they had such a poor UX that it's no wonder the iPhone succeeded.
- drzaiusapelord 16y ago
  Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Palm were all players then too.
Anechoic 16y ago
>I'm not really sure what conclusion he is trying to go for... I don't think he is trying to draw a conclusion, in fact he specifically says "One should be careful about drawing conclusions..." Sometimes data are just data.
hackermom 16y ago
It's actually about 15 devices, one of which is Apple's, and the remaining 14 belonging to other companies. For some reason people were always quick to illuminate this important detail when it came to comparing other mobile platforms in the past (BBOS vs Symbian etc.), but in this particular "battle" no one wants to touch the fact that Apple are entirely alone on the iOS side, facing all of the other giants on the market.
- drzaiusapelord 16y ago
  Err, its not one device, its ipad, ipod, and iphone. So its three devices and if you count versions, dozens.
  - hackermom 16y ago
    Well, by that metric, the Android camp is up to well over 100 devices. I guess you got my point anyway :) (one vendor vs craploads of vendors)
kjksf 16y ago
Based on iPhone's first day sales, their "uphill battle towards adoption" looked more like a rolling down the hill. With a help of a rocket engine.

muhfuhkuh 16y ago

Perhaps _this_ is finally the moment where Linux (to steal a quote from Wayne Gretzky as to why he was so dominant in hockey) skated to where the puck is going rather than where it is. It was always playing catchup to Windows with its entrenched cash cow and monopolistic control over PC manufacturers; though it did find footing where MS wasn't: The server room. As someone in a 50/50 mix household of iOS and Android products, this is the kind of competition I relish in an industry. No one trying to box another out, neither one with any monopolistic tactics to crush the other; all on equal footing both financially and culturally. iOS attacks the high end with simplicity and seamless usability; Android with open configurability (in most instances) and endless options to make it yours.

yhlasx 16y ago

No matter what, Unlike Google, Apple is making lots of money from its ios devices. Android feels geeky thus limits its audience. Ios is very well polished and fancy. Maybe some people might not like it, but still ios has a lot larger audience than Android. This article sounds like saying "Both are great but android is catching up and will beat ios someday soon". I highly doubt that. Until Google learns doing marketing as well as Apple, apple will be leading the market and eating largest piece of pie.

sudont 16y ago
"thus limits its audience" I must disagree on this. Android's adoption is both in high-end smartphones like the Nexus, as well as a lot of low-end, with-the-plan phones. What limits it's use is the geeky feeling you talk about. I know a large segment of users who use Android, and only the technical ones are those who use features: everybody else basically has a dumb phone with a big screen and extra 20/month plan. The monopoly preventing the same gold rush on app development in Android that iOS has is that: paying users. They may be coming soon, though. I know plenty of iOS users about to jump ship to Android. My mom will buy an app (iOS), my friends who develop software for a living won't (Gingerbread).
- slouch 16y ago
  i disagree with both of you. my non-nerd friends have taught me how to use my android device way better than i was able to teach myself. i never thought to look for a text pop-up app, i just figured that functionality was on my old phone and not my new one. i didn't consider the advanced task killer widget would put a button on one of my home screens and take care of the work i put into the manage applications menu force killing things i don't want anymore. i have two girlfriends that use android way smarter than me, the one who is reading an android development book.
  - theBobMcCormick 16y ago
    If your friends are teaching you to use advanced task killer, they're teaching you wrong. That shit is snake oil. See these links for more info: http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/ http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-wi... http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-...

martythemaniak 16y ago

It's not a step function, it's just very very rapid growth. It helps if you think of the G1 and Android 1.0 (first 5-6 quarters) as "Android Beta", since it could not even play to its intended strengths (different devices and carriers). Also, these kinds of observations don't make much sense - neither company discloses anything more than carefully worded tidbits. End-of-quarter sales numbers are the way to go.

roc 16y ago

The tricky part with Android adoption, is that it's so tightly coupled with manufacturer adoption. Can we intelligently say that someone buying the Motorola Droid X is choosing Android? or are they choosing Motorola? (or are they choosing Verizon?) Geeks seem to ignore this point; likely because we'd been making fun of feature-phones for years before the smartphones hit. But those phones were well-liked by a great many people and had non-trivial brand loyalty.

MatthewPhillips 16y ago
Does that matter as far as future growth is concerned? Motorola isn't going to stop producing Android phones, nor is Verizon.
- roc 16y ago
  It absolutely matters. Remember when Vista was "the fastest selling operating system ever" [1]? Would it have been wise to read those first months of sales as indicative of interest-in and preference-for Vista and thus safe to extrapolate? Or was it due to other, stronger factors (bundling, brand-recognition) that have very clear analogues in the phone market? [1] http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749132%28WS.10%29.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749132%28WS.10%...
  - MatthewPhillips 16y ago
    The article doesn't extrapolate Android sales based on the current growth trajectory; in fact it specifically warns against doing that. The iOS growth shows a discernible pattern, whereas the Android chart doesn't yet do that. However the analogy to Vista doesn't strike me as valid, for a number of reasons. Vista is a version of Windows much like Froyo is a version of Android. Vista's growth was diffused by people not buying new computers; not because they chose computers other than those running Windows. Additionally computer manufacturers were more willing to continue to release computers still running XP; this is not analogous to the phone world (there is no demand for older versions of Android). I guess what you are possibly suggesting is that Android adoption has been based on reasons apart from a desire to own an Android device; this may or may not be true. We won't be able to judge that until the wave of adopting users have come off their current contracts and are able to upgrade to a new phone. However this article specifically warns against extrapolating the Android data points as they currently are shown.

pkaler 16y ago

The original blog post is called "The Android Step Function". Taking the name of the graph, "Android vs. iOS Growth", and applying it as the title of the new story is disingenuous. The entire point of the article is that there is seasonality to the growth of Android. The point of the article is the shapes of the graphs not the absolute values.

protomyth 16y ago

At this point, I thought we would have actual sales numbers of Android devices (not activations). I am a little curious why this isn't happening.

adolph 16y ago
Given the number of suppliers and retail options, and the various metrics they use to measure themselves, I bet it is very difficult to tell.
- protomyth 16y ago
  True, but I get the feeling someone at Google knows how many copies of their software (the official Google apps) are out there. I just don't trust activations as any real metric.

grandalf 16y ago

I really think this is going to end up hurting Google in the long run. Quality control for Android phones is horrible and handset manufacturers add their own garbageware to the phones. Google is banking on consumers being too naive to realize they are getting a substantially inferior experience. Not a good bet in my opinion. Apple is being stupid here by not calling Google's bluff and lowering prices even more aggressively. Nobody who used both phones side by side for a few days would prefer Android.

mcantelon 16y ago
>Not a good bet in my opinion. McDonalds in one of the most popular restaurants in the world. Is it because it has better food?
- grandalf 16y ago
  Two points in response: 1) Many people love/crave McDonalds. The menu is optimized to appeal to human cravings for fats, carbs, and sweets. 2) McDonalds is also very inexpensive. Android phones sell for nearly the same price as iPhones.
  - mcantelon 16y ago
    >2) McDonalds is also very inexpensive. Android phones sell for nearly the same price as iPhones. Although I'd love to see an $87 handset from Apple, I don't see it happening when Apple is committed to going it alone. http://armdevices.net/2011/04/11/best-of-shenzhen-87-android-3-5-capacitive-phone-mtk6516-fg8/ http://armdevices.net/2011/04/11/best-of-shenzhen-87-android... Android's many partners strategy means it gets to capitalize on unexpected resources and niches that Apple's central planning mentality won't be able to access.
    - grandalf 16y ago
      Isn't an iPhone4 $99 with a contract?