Apple has designed its business model to cede the mass market. It focuses on capturing the majority of industry profits, not sales. It should surprise no one th

Apple has designed its business model to cede the mass market. It focuses on capturing the majority of industry profits, not sales. It should surprise no one that more phones ship with Android than iOS. As a platform company, this strategy exposes a vulnerable flank since historically the platform company with the most market share attracts the best software and the most end users. The greatest difference between mobile devices and PCs? There is no IBM, which essentially standardized a powerful alternative to the Apple PC within a year or two. Android is not a single alternative but more an umbrella term encompassing several alternatives. There is still too much fragmentation today in the Android ecosystem, and its structure fosters fragmentation -- not standardization. The device manufacturers saw how commoditization destroyed the PC manufacturers, and they are intent to avoid the same fate. Unless something changes, Android devices from one manufacturer will continue to vary from other Android devices in terms of size and functionality. For developers, the right way to segment operating systems is not Android vs iOS vs Windows 8, but by code reach. In other words, how many devices can be reached with the same code base? My hunch is iOS will have an impressive lead in this metric, but I'm happy to be proven wrong if someone has contradicting data. Apple is content to yield marginally profitable customers to "Android," provided Android remains as fragmented as it is today. If Android were to unite, or some other OS emerges, allowing devs to target 75% of the market with (fundamentally) the same code base, the threat to Apple becomes far more dangerous.