Google Android is about to kick the iPhone's ass. AFAIK there are no hard Android sales figures yet. Android's manufacturer predicted "more than 600,000" unit

Google Android is about to kick the iPhone's ass. AFAIK there are no hard Android sales figures yet. Android's manufacturer predicted "more than 600,000" unit sales in 2008 (representing about 2-3 months of sales, from launch to end-of-year, spanning the Christmas season): http://www.mercurynews.com/businessheadlines/ci_10799172 http://www.mercurynews.com/businessheadlines/ci_10799172 Meanwhile Apple sold 6.9 million iPhones in the fourth quarter ending Sept 27, plus 11 million iPods, some of which were iPod Touch units: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/10/21results.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/10/21results.html Note that very few people shop for Christmas before September. Wake Steve Jobs up when these numbers are closer. Meanwhile, if the "monopolistic distribution channel" of iPhone software ever becomes a serious handicap to Apple's sales, Apple will just end it, overnight. [1] They could open up the iPhone distribution model within a handful of weeks if they wanted to. It's mostly a policy decision. So I wouldn't build my business on the assumption that Apple is going to blindly follow their old path until it dooms them. --- [1] They've already shown signs of trying to do this with their music store. Apple sells DRM-free music from many labels and has publicly stated that they'd like to do so with all the labels. The likely reason why they don't is that the labels won't let them. The music labels are trying to use DRM-free music to grow Apple's competitors in a desperate attempt to prevent Apple from consolidating its dominance of paid music distribution. Such machinations aren't a consideration for iPhone software. The only reason Apple runs a closed iPhone software store is that they think it works better.