7 ms·

The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. Customers lacking in

by shingen 15y ago

The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. Customers lacking in technological savvy make up the radical majority of Android owners, they are never going to care about this issue so long as their smart phone functions at 85% good enough. 85% good enough, is more than enough to win a market if you have substantial other advantages in your favor. Windows has always suffered fragmentation, and has rarely been better than 85% good enough. Circa 2002 they had '95, 98, ME, and XP spread across over half a billion units. With further varied patch configurations and service packs. The total global varied combinations are in the hundreds in that context. But, you say, that's just so horrible! Welcome to reality, where markets are never dominated by perfection and fairy tales. You don't have to like it, you can rail against it the rest of your life, and fight the good fight; and Android will continue to dominate, and it will have absolutely nothing to do with issues related to fragmentation.

jsz0 15y ago
Some of these issues are not immediately apparent but might be factors when you're buying your next device. Only time will tell.
bunderbunder 15y ago
If the only goal were market share then yes, Android is virtually guaranteed to dominate the market for the same reason Windows has been, and that would be a trump card in this conversation. However, I don't really think the criticisms about Android fragmentation amount to nothing but beating around the "market share" bush. I think that, believe it or not, folks who are criticizing Android mean what they're saying. With all due respect to Groucho, sometimes a complaint that the Android platform's combination of failure to deliver software updates to existing users and lack of a decent wall around the garden raises serious security and privacy concerns is just a complaint that the Android platform's combination of failure to deliver software updates to existing users and lack of a decent wall around the garden raises serious security and privacy concerns.
- djhworld 15y ago
  It's irritating that people blame Android, Google have been steadily releasing new editions of the OS. Surely the actual problem is the carriers/manufacturers?
  - gnaffle 15y ago
    The actual problem is the carriers/manufacturers, but Google could have put in requirements regarding upgrade policies. However, they're apparently not in a strong enough position to do that, after all they need to get the manufacturers on board on the promise that they have more freedom with Android. They could also have made it easier on the manufacturers to do upgrades (ie. giving out continuous updates during development instead of just a source dump at launch time).
  - tvon 15y ago
    On a technical level, yes, but when discussing Android "the product" (aka "the experience") it's the correct way to refer to it.
  - bunderbunder 15y ago
    Android isn't just Google. It's also the carriers and manufacturers.
- Jun8 15y ago
  Spot on! Look at the two big market share holders, Nokia (worldwide & India) and Motorola (US & China). They achieved this by operating on razor thin margins (both, but mostly Nokia) and bending to carriers' every whim (Motorola). See how quickly that market share argument evaporated.
elithrar 15y ago
> Circa 2002 they had '95, 98, ME, and XP spread across over half a billion units. With further varied patch configurations and service packs. It's worth pointing out that this comparison isn't the same. You could, in 2002, run the latest version of Office on all of their operating systems. With Android, there are situations where even Google's own software (see Chrome on Android) only runs on the absolute latest version. Further, in 2002, all the big name vendors were generally shipping Windows XP on their machines. With Android, vendors are still shipping devices with 2.3. It's still a good OS, but it has to be frustrating as a non-tech user to understand why your brand new Android device can't run software released last week.
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  And Microsoft was pushing updates and security patches to all those XP machines. Still are, over 10 years after initial release. Whereas Android users are lucky if they're still getting updates and security patches after 10 months.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Handset vendors and carriers push security patches routinely (though not commonly, the sandbox architecture makes it a lot less needed than on a desktop OS). It's OS upgrades that are slow. Holes get closed.
    - bunderbunder 15y ago
      The article links another article which shows, graphically, how long a number of popular Android phones were getting updates - including security patches. According to it, Android users are lucky to be getting updates after a mere 10 months. Including security patches. And that's assuming you buy the phone immediately after it hits the market.
      - ajross 15y ago
        Not sure which article you mean. You're saying you're aware of an unpatched vulnerability on an android handset?
eykanal 15y ago
There's an excellent line in the middle of the Android Support Visualization article he links to (http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphan...): "In other words, Apple’s way of getting you to buy a new phone is to make you really happy with your current one, whereas apparently Android phone makers think they can get you to buy a new phone by making you really unhappy with your current one." 85% is good enough to have someone buy your crap, but it's not enough to make them loyal to your crap.
- CoffeeDregs 15y ago
  >85% is good enough to have someone buy your crap, >but it's not enough to make them loyal to your crap. I get tired of the fanboistic comments in a lot of these threads. There is a big, strategic, complex, technology game going on and, apparently, a bunch of smart hackers think phones are like simple breakfast cereals (and even those aren't simple). A big battle is afoot. Act like it. Stop pretending that one side wears white and the other wears black. I always hated Microsoft's products (aging myself: I used OS/2), but they understood the game that was afoot. I'm not anti-Apple. I'm anti-blinders and so many of my friends who use Apple products seem to employ them... To their credit and only in limited ways are Apple finally acknowledging that network effects are important. But they're doing so in a world quite different than the one in which Microsoft thrived. As I said, I hated Microsoft's strategies, so I hope Apple will not emulate them too closely. EDIT: I appreciate the lack of downvotes... I was hesitant to write such an opinionated bit, but was frustrated.
  - paganel 15y ago
    > I get tired of the fanboistic comments in a lot of these threads. There is a big, strategic, complex, technology game going on and, apparently, a bunch of smart hackers think phones are like simple breakfast cereals (and even those aren't simple). I also upvoted you, even though I don't think you're quite correct. I personally don't believe that "hackers (...) think that phones are like simple breakfast cereals". Not that I'm a "hacker" or anything, but most of us HN-ers know how difficult is to "make things just work". Apple does that, ie "making things just work". And, trust me, I'm not an Apple fanboy. I use a Windows 7 machine for development at work, all my websites are hosted on Ubuntu, and the only Apple products I own are my laptop and my phone. I know it's only anecdotal, but until yesterday I was the very happy owner of an iPhone 3 (not even 3GS). Everything had been working just fine for the last 2 years, apart from a slightly decreased battery-life and Facebook's native app suddenly not working anymore, which was the moment when I realized that maybe it was time for an upgrade. What did I do then? I went straight into the store and bought an iPhone 4, because that way I knew for a fact that for the next 2-3 years I would have no problems in using my phone. I have no such guarantee from Android phones, even though most of them are similarly priced.
grourk 15y ago
This has nothing to do with his post. Did you read it beyond "What's wrong with Android?" and "Fragmentation"? He's saying that for his purposes Android is not up to snuff, and then lays out the reasons -- fragmentation was one of them. There can be an discussions about topics besides market domination. Such as what sucks about Android and how it could be better. An "endless parade" of such discussions doesn't prove that people don't understand what wins a market at all.
xsmasher 15y ago
The nontech users may not know or care what fragmentation means, but they do wonder why each phone the buy has different icons, interface, and even apps, and they do get frustrated when thy can't figure out their new phone because it's so different from the last one. Windows had tremendous hardware variety, but it never han the inconsistency - even in the same version of the os - that android has.
mikeash 15y ago
This article is not talking about what wins a market. In fact, it explicitly disclaims any attempt to apply these lessons to the wider world. It's simply a discussion of where Android falls short as relates to his particular needs. As such, this comment seems awfully off topic.
- mark_integerdsv 15y ago
  Fans of the platform seem to hammer on about market share an awful lot. Stockholm Syndrome? I really cannot fathom why a consumer, assuming they have no stock in the platform outside their own purchase should be so concerned about something as trivial as market share. Were the platform in danger of disappearing due to low market share (WebOS) I'd understand that but puffing up your chest because the OS on your smartphone has the best market share seems very strange to me. It's really not a feature of the device.
  - jodrellblank 15y ago
    a) it attracts developers and other content providers, and b) it is a reflection of device popularity (i.e. if a lot of people think it's a good device, there must be something to it).
    - simonh 15y ago
      Except that a) iOS has a dramatically healthier app ecosystem, and b) the poster even points out that most people who buy Android phones don't care about the platform. Sorry, but the 'Android is dominating' meme took a sever credibility shock with the last round of Android handset manufacturer profit slides. But you know, they'll make it up in volume. Or something.
      - dagw 15y ago
        What does market dominance have to do with profit margins? The two are pretty much orthogonal.
  - 15y ago
siglesias 15y ago
Except that the refresh cycle for a mobile device is around two years, and word spreads more quickly than ever that you can't run the latest stuff. If that Android phone can't run the latest apps, lags, or can't do all the things that your friend's iPhone [1] can do, easily, and reliably, you're a lost customer. On the flip side, if you're a developer with limited resources and your app can't run on a vast majority of deployed devices without extensive and expensive testing, you're a lost developer. Neither of these things is good for a computing platform. Never was, never will be. These are first principles. Sure, there might be other factors, (which you haven't specified by the way), but all else equal users and developers want consistency in a platform for the sake of compatibility. 1) Top rated review for Path for Android: http://cl.ly/1P082D1L2D1k1O0i3K0J http://cl.ly/1P082D1L2D1k1O0i3K0J
- funkah 15y ago
  > Neither of these things is good for a computing platform. Never was, never will be. These are first principles. Right, I don't understand why this is so hard to understand.
beatle 15y ago
>The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. market share is useless if your users are not spending money. Android is in the same position as Nokia 10 yrs ago. And we all know how much Nokia profited from their enormous market share.
- gurkendoktor 15y ago
  I don't understand the comparison with Nokia. Many people I know still happily use their dumbphones from around that time. It sucks that the economic system punishes this. Android phones are smartphones that fall apart after two years. Google doesn't care if these get replaced as long as people view ads, vendors know they can sell another device to the same person two years later. Both sides benefit from market share.
ugh 15y ago
What are you responding to? Certainly not to the linked article. Can you read? You are completely off-topic. This is about deployment in schools, nothing else.
thought_alarm 15y ago
> Windows has always suffered fragmentation, and has rarely been better than 85% good enough. Circa 2002 they had '95, 98, ME, and XP spread across over half a billion units. Let's ignore the heroic lengths Microsoft went to ensure compatibility between Windows versions. You're wrong, anyway. The cell phone industry is nothing like the PC industry. Whenever you find yourself using a PC analogy to explain some part of Android it means you're getting it completely wrong because it demonstrates an utter lack of understanding of how companies like RIM, Nokia, and Samsung have come to dominate the cell phone industry over the years. Of course fragmentation is not a problem for the cell phone industry. Fragmentation is a crucial property of the cell phone industry. Samsung became the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world by providing a large, fragmented, outdated array of devices to the carriers. How could Android fragmentation possibly be a problem for Samsung or the carriers? The industry has never been about providing up-to-date software. The older your software, the faster you'll update your phone and sign a new 2-year contract. However, fragmentation is a big problem for people like you and me, who think the smartphone industry should be more like the PC industry, and it's a problem for Google and anyone else who wants to compete with Apple on Apple's terms.
betterth 15y ago
Android will continue to dominate? You mean, it will continue to win most activations so long as it lets any budget device count? Because what other metric is Android winning? Apple captures the lionshare of the entire industry's profits. HTC and Moto are barely breaking even on Android devices. Google can't even get users past 2.3, no one is using 4.0, and they're already on track to have 5.0 out in what, three months? Some "domination". I wish I understand what metrics people used to determine these things. I guess it comes down to "activations". Which, when you get down to it, is a rather poor indicator of platform strength.
- betterth 15y ago
  Downvote and don't reply all y'all want. Using activations as a metric is bad. "India is dominating America because they have far more human activations (births) than America!" There's a good analogy as to why 'activations' do not tell a complete story. Please reply with what other metrics people use when saying that Android "dominates". I'd honestly love to know. Otherwise, it's nothing more than a mirror of rose-tinted Apple fanboys, it's Android fanboyism.
batista 15y ago
The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. Customers lacking in technological savvy make up the radical majority of Android owners, they are never going to care about this issue so long as their smart phone functions at 85% good enough. And people don't understand that wining a market means nothing and it can even be a race to the bottom, it's wining the profitable part of the market that matters. But, you say, that's just so horrible! Welcome to reality, where markets are never dominated by perfection and fairy tales. You don't have to like it, you can rail against it the rest of your life, and fight the good fight; and Android will continue to dominate, and it will have absolutely nothing to do with issues related to fragmentation. Was this written in 2001 or something? It's like the PC continues to dominate but the industry is dying for profit margin, the cool kids have all moved to OS X and/or Linux (go to any university campus or programming conference), and all the majority of the money and mindshare go to the ecosystem that's not PC based...
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  >And people don't understand that wining a market means nothing and it can even be a race to the bottom, it's wining the profitable part of the market that matters. By that metric IIS is whomping Apache and Nginx. But you don't see that discussed around here. Only the metric that suits people's affiliations and biases seem to really matter here.
epo 15y ago
"The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing..." All this proves is what an irrational fanboy you are. What does "winning a market" mean? Money made or numbers sold? Customer satisfaction? Ongoing revenue? As with all fanboys you concentrate on the figure you think is in your favour: market share (no mentions of which of which seem to include returns). Apple have the numbers that matter, revenue, profit, customer visibility (show me the queues of people waiting to get the latest - soon to be out-of-date - Android handset). As of right now to claim that Android is winning a market (remember markets exist to make money) is almost pathetically deluded. I would suggest that for the most part people buy an iDevice because that is specifically what they want, and for the most part most people buy Android devices because the handsets are cheap or are being pushed by the salesman. You also ignored the rest of his post which detailed other problems with Android and the Android ecosystem.

by shingen 15y ago

jsz0 15y ago

Some of these issues are not immediately apparent but might be factors when you're buying your next device. Only time will tell.

bunderbunder 15y ago

If the only goal were market share then yes, Android is virtually guaranteed to dominate the market for the same reason Windows has been, and that would be a trump card in this conversation. However, I don't really think the criticisms about Android fragmentation amount to nothing but beating around the "market share" bush. I think that, believe it or not, folks who are criticizing Android mean what they're saying. With all due respect to Groucho, sometimes a complaint that the Android platform's combination of failure to deliver software updates to existing users and lack of a decent wall around the garden raises serious security and privacy concerns is just a complaint that the Android platform's combination of failure to deliver software updates to existing users and lack of a decent wall around the garden raises serious security and privacy concerns.

djhworld 15y ago
It's irritating that people blame Android, Google have been steadily releasing new editions of the OS. Surely the actual problem is the carriers/manufacturers?
- gnaffle 15y ago
  The actual problem is the carriers/manufacturers, but Google could have put in requirements regarding upgrade policies. However, they're apparently not in a strong enough position to do that, after all they need to get the manufacturers on board on the promise that they have more freedom with Android. They could also have made it easier on the manufacturers to do upgrades (ie. giving out continuous updates during development instead of just a source dump at launch time).
- tvon 15y ago
  On a technical level, yes, but when discussing Android "the product" (aka "the experience") it's the correct way to refer to it.
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  Android isn't just Google. It's also the carriers and manufacturers.
Jun8 15y ago
Spot on! Look at the two big market share holders, Nokia (worldwide & India) and Motorola (US & China). They achieved this by operating on razor thin margins (both, but mostly Nokia) and bending to carriers' every whim (Motorola). See how quickly that market share argument evaporated.

elithrar 15y ago

> Circa 2002 they had '95, 98, ME, and XP spread across over half a billion units. With further varied patch configurations and service packs. It's worth pointing out that this comparison isn't the same. You could, in 2002, run the latest version of Office on all of their operating systems. With Android, there are situations where even Google's own software (see Chrome on Android) only runs on the absolute latest version. Further, in 2002, all the big name vendors were generally shipping Windows XP on their machines. With Android, vendors are still shipping devices with 2.3. It's still a good OS, but it has to be frustrating as a non-tech user to understand why your brand new Android device can't run software released last week.

bunderbunder 15y ago
And Microsoft was pushing updates and security patches to all those XP machines. Still are, over 10 years after initial release. Whereas Android users are lucky if they're still getting updates and security patches after 10 months.
- ajross 15y ago
  Handset vendors and carriers push security patches routinely (though not commonly, the sandbox architecture makes it a lot less needed than on a desktop OS). It's OS upgrades that are slow. Holes get closed.
  - bunderbunder 15y ago
    The article links another article which shows, graphically, how long a number of popular Android phones were getting updates - including security patches. According to it, Android users are lucky to be getting updates after a mere 10 months. Including security patches. And that's assuming you buy the phone immediately after it hits the market.
    - ajross 15y ago
      Not sure which article you mean. You're saying you're aware of an unpatched vulnerability on an android handset?

eykanal 15y ago

There's an excellent line in the middle of the Android Support Visualization article he links to (http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphan...): "In other words, Apple’s way of getting you to buy a new phone is to make you really happy with your current one, whereas apparently Android phone makers think they can get you to buy a new phone by making you really unhappy with your current one." 85% is good enough to have someone buy your crap, but it's not enough to make them loyal to your crap.

CoffeeDregs 15y ago
>85% is good enough to have someone buy your crap, >but it's not enough to make them loyal to your crap. I get tired of the fanboistic comments in a lot of these threads. There is a big, strategic, complex, technology game going on and, apparently, a bunch of smart hackers think phones are like simple breakfast cereals (and even those aren't simple). A big battle is afoot. Act like it. Stop pretending that one side wears white and the other wears black. I always hated Microsoft's products (aging myself: I used OS/2), but they understood the game that was afoot. I'm not anti-Apple. I'm anti-blinders and so many of my friends who use Apple products seem to employ them... To their credit and only in limited ways are Apple finally acknowledging that network effects are important. But they're doing so in a world quite different than the one in which Microsoft thrived. As I said, I hated Microsoft's strategies, so I hope Apple will not emulate them too closely. EDIT: I appreciate the lack of downvotes... I was hesitant to write such an opinionated bit, but was frustrated.
- paganel 15y ago
  > I get tired of the fanboistic comments in a lot of these threads. There is a big, strategic, complex, technology game going on and, apparently, a bunch of smart hackers think phones are like simple breakfast cereals (and even those aren't simple). I also upvoted you, even though I don't think you're quite correct. I personally don't believe that "hackers (...) think that phones are like simple breakfast cereals". Not that I'm a "hacker" or anything, but most of us HN-ers know how difficult is to "make things just work". Apple does that, ie "making things just work". And, trust me, I'm not an Apple fanboy. I use a Windows 7 machine for development at work, all my websites are hosted on Ubuntu, and the only Apple products I own are my laptop and my phone. I know it's only anecdotal, but until yesterday I was the very happy owner of an iPhone 3 (not even 3GS). Everything had been working just fine for the last 2 years, apart from a slightly decreased battery-life and Facebook's native app suddenly not working anymore, which was the moment when I realized that maybe it was time for an upgrade. What did I do then? I went straight into the store and bought an iPhone 4, because that way I knew for a fact that for the next 2-3 years I would have no problems in using my phone. I have no such guarantee from Android phones, even though most of them are similarly priced.

grourk 15y ago

This has nothing to do with his post. Did you read it beyond "What's wrong with Android?" and "Fragmentation"? He's saying that for his purposes Android is not up to snuff, and then lays out the reasons -- fragmentation was one of them. There can be an discussions about topics besides market domination. Such as what sucks about Android and how it could be better. An "endless parade" of such discussions doesn't prove that people don't understand what wins a market at all.

xsmasher 15y ago

The nontech users may not know or care what fragmentation means, but they do wonder why each phone the buy has different icons, interface, and even apps, and they do get frustrated when thy can't figure out their new phone because it's so different from the last one. Windows had tremendous hardware variety, but it never han the inconsistency - even in the same version of the os - that android has.

mikeash 15y ago

This article is not talking about what wins a market. In fact, it explicitly disclaims any attempt to apply these lessons to the wider world. It's simply a discussion of where Android falls short as relates to his particular needs. As such, this comment seems awfully off topic.

mark_integerdsv 15y ago
Fans of the platform seem to hammer on about market share an awful lot. Stockholm Syndrome? I really cannot fathom why a consumer, assuming they have no stock in the platform outside their own purchase should be so concerned about something as trivial as market share. Were the platform in danger of disappearing due to low market share (WebOS) I'd understand that but puffing up your chest because the OS on your smartphone has the best market share seems very strange to me. It's really not a feature of the device.
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  a) it attracts developers and other content providers, and b) it is a reflection of device popularity (i.e. if a lot of people think it's a good device, there must be something to it).
  - simonh 15y ago
    Except that a) iOS has a dramatically healthier app ecosystem, and b) the poster even points out that most people who buy Android phones don't care about the platform. Sorry, but the 'Android is dominating' meme took a sever credibility shock with the last round of Android handset manufacturer profit slides. But you know, they'll make it up in volume. Or something.
    - dagw 15y ago
      What does market dominance have to do with profit margins? The two are pretty much orthogonal.
- 15y ago

siglesias 15y ago

Except that the refresh cycle for a mobile device is around two years, and word spreads more quickly than ever that you can't run the latest stuff. If that Android phone can't run the latest apps, lags, or can't do all the things that your friend's iPhone [1] can do, easily, and reliably, you're a lost customer. On the flip side, if you're a developer with limited resources and your app can't run on a vast majority of deployed devices without extensive and expensive testing, you're a lost developer. Neither of these things is good for a computing platform. Never was, never will be. These are first principles. Sure, there might be other factors, (which you haven't specified by the way), but all else equal users and developers want consistency in a platform for the sake of compatibility. 1) Top rated review for Path for Android: http://cl.ly/1P082D1L2D1k1O0i3K0J http://cl.ly/1P082D1L2D1k1O0i3K0J

funkah 15y ago
> Neither of these things is good for a computing platform. Never was, never will be. These are first principles. Right, I don't understand why this is so hard to understand.

beatle 15y ago

>The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. market share is useless if your users are not spending money. Android is in the same position as Nokia 10 yrs ago. And we all know how much Nokia profited from their enormous market share.

gurkendoktor 15y ago
I don't understand the comparison with Nokia. Many people I know still happily use their dumbphones from around that time. It sucks that the economic system punishes this. Android phones are smartphones that fall apart after two years. Google doesn't care if these get replaced as long as people view ads, vendors know they can sell another device to the same person two years later. Both sides benefit from market share.

ugh 15y ago

What are you responding to? Certainly not to the linked article. Can you read? You are completely off-topic. This is about deployment in schools, nothing else.

thought_alarm 15y ago

> Windows has always suffered fragmentation, and has rarely been better than 85% good enough. Circa 2002 they had '95, 98, ME, and XP spread across over half a billion units. Let's ignore the heroic lengths Microsoft went to ensure compatibility between Windows versions. You're wrong, anyway. The cell phone industry is nothing like the PC industry. Whenever you find yourself using a PC analogy to explain some part of Android it means you're getting it completely wrong because it demonstrates an utter lack of understanding of how companies like RIM, Nokia, and Samsung have come to dominate the cell phone industry over the years. Of course fragmentation is not a problem for the cell phone industry. Fragmentation is a crucial property of the cell phone industry. Samsung became the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world by providing a large, fragmented, outdated array of devices to the carriers. How could Android fragmentation possibly be a problem for Samsung or the carriers? The industry has never been about providing up-to-date software. The older your software, the faster you'll update your phone and sign a new 2-year contract. However, fragmentation is a big problem for people like you and me, who think the smartphone industry should be more like the PC industry, and it's a problem for Google and anyone else who wants to compete with Apple on Apple's terms.

betterth 15y ago

Android will continue to dominate? You mean, it will continue to win most activations so long as it lets any budget device count? Because what other metric is Android winning? Apple captures the lionshare of the entire industry's profits. HTC and Moto are barely breaking even on Android devices. Google can't even get users past 2.3, no one is using 4.0, and they're already on track to have 5.0 out in what, three months? Some "domination". I wish I understand what metrics people used to determine these things. I guess it comes down to "activations". Which, when you get down to it, is a rather poor indicator of platform strength.

betterth 15y ago
Downvote and don't reply all y'all want. Using activations as a metric is bad. "India is dominating America because they have far more human activations (births) than America!" There's a good analogy as to why 'activations' do not tell a complete story. Please reply with what other metrics people use when saying that Android "dominates". I'd honestly love to know. Otherwise, it's nothing more than a mirror of rose-tinted Apple fanboys, it's Android fanboyism.

batista 15y ago

The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. Customers lacking in technological savvy make up the radical majority of Android owners, they are never going to care about this issue so long as their smart phone functions at 85% good enough. And people don't understand that wining a market means nothing and it can even be a race to the bottom, it's wining the profitable part of the market that matters. But, you say, that's just so horrible! Welcome to reality, where markets are never dominated by perfection and fairy tales. You don't have to like it, you can rail against it the rest of your life, and fight the good fight; and Android will continue to dominate, and it will have absolutely nothing to do with issues related to fragmentation. Was this written in 2001 or something? It's like the PC continues to dominate but the industry is dying for profit margin, the cool kids have all moved to OS X and/or Linux (go to any university campus or programming conference), and all the majority of the money and mindshare go to the ecosystem that's not PC based...

recoiledsnake 15y ago
>And people don't understand that wining a market means nothing and it can even be a race to the bottom, it's wining the profitable part of the market that matters. By that metric IIS is whomping Apache and Nginx. But you don't see that discussed around here. Only the metric that suits people's affiliations and biases seem to really matter here.

epo 15y ago

"The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing..." All this proves is what an irrational fanboy you are. What does "winning a market" mean? Money made or numbers sold? Customer satisfaction? Ongoing revenue? As with all fanboys you concentrate on the figure you think is in your favour: market share (no mentions of which of which seem to include returns). Apple have the numbers that matter, revenue, profit, customer visibility (show me the queues of people waiting to get the latest - soon to be out-of-date - Android handset). As of right now to claim that Android is winning a market (remember markets exist to make money) is almost pathetically deluded. I would suggest that for the most part people buy an iDevice because that is specifically what they want, and for the most part most people buy Android devices because the handsets are cheap or are being pushed by the salesman. You also ignored the rest of his post which detailed other problems with Android and the Android ecosystem.