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My unscientific prediction: Andoid has only a few months to catch up to iPhone by June 2010, when the exclusivity deal with AT&T ends. This is not nearly enough

My unscientific prediction: Andoid has only a few months to catch up to iPhone by June 2010, when the exclusivity deal with AT&T ends. This is not nearly enough.

dkokelley 17y ago
I think the Droid will help quite a bit, provided Apple doesn't have much up their sleeve to announce in June.
halo 17y ago
I disagree. There is no deadline, especially not in a market where people purchase new phones every 18-24 months. I can see Android's sales continuing to trickle upward as prices drop on phone hardware, as companies use their brand loyalty to push Android phones on those upgrading, as new manufacturers enter the fray, and as the public are clearer about what 'Android' is. I think people expected too much from Android on day one. Android's only been a multi-manufacturer platform for about 3 months and before then were only two rather clunky handsets which were both basically rush-released. It was never going to have the immediate impact that the iPhone had due to it being later to market, not having sales of the iPod to drive it forward, having less brand recongition and less marketing behind it. The nature of the beast is that it was always going to be a slow burner.
davidw 17y ago
A T and T is not really a concern in most of the world, so at best that concerns the US market, which has been, until the iPhone, a bit of a backwater in terms of mobile phone stuff. I see Apple conquering a nice share of the market, maybe even larger than anyone else, but still well under 50%. If everyone has one, they lose their cachet. Also, Android will probably never be quite as beautiful, but if you combine 'good enough' with a far more open system, and a platform that people can innovate on, I think that, long term, it will do quite well. I sure hope so; I'm simply not interested in owning devices that I can't load my own code on, and that also require the ownership of a Mac just to develop on.
- nearestneighbor 17y ago
  I'm simply not interested in owning devices that I can't load my own code on The average consumer doesn't care about this.
  - davidw 17y ago
    Good for them, I was talking about myself in that phrase, which is why I prefaced it with "I sure hope so". I do think that open tends to win out over closed, though, with time, because the advantages for developers and businesses translate into advantages for everyone.
    - tjogin 17y ago
      I agree that advantages for developers and businesses are key to success in the long term, for any platform. But I don't agree that openness of the platform is necessarily the exclusive nor primary way of doing that — it's just a way of doing that. Right now, Apple's platform is clearly offering key advantages to developers and businesses, in spite of not offering a very open platform. Personally, I hope both Google, RIM and Palm manage to catch up in this department. Strong competition between these vendors should offer plenty of incentives for them to improve their own platforms. Apple certainly seem to need a bit of extra motivation to improve the train-wreck that is the AppStore approval process — right now I think their success is blinding their ability to see many of their flaws.
      - davidw 17y ago
        > Right now, Apple's platform is clearly offering key advantages to developers and businesses, in spite of not offering a very open platform. It absolutely blew the competition out of the water, so yeah, that's what the 'key advantages' are. Everyone had been muddling along with their fiddly Nokia interfaces, which aren't bad, but nowhere near as nice or cool as the iPhone. However, Android looks to be 'good enough' in terms of competition, much like Windows was 'good enough' when competing with the Mac, and much more open in terms of what it ran on. The big open question for me about Android is fragmentation. With j2me staring them in the face, it's something they have to be thinking about a great deal, and I'd really love to know what they actually think about it. In any case, between a closed, proprietary platform and an open source one, I know where my own loyalties lie. There is tons of work in this field, and I will simply not bother with mobile if it ends up being 'owned' by Apple.
jonknee 17y ago
Where's Apple going to go? T-Mobile? They have even less 3G coverage than AT&T. They could go to major effort and redesign the radio to be able to get on Verizon or Sprint, but considering every other worldwide market they target is GSM I don't really see that happening (other than a few prototypes to light a fire under AT&T).
- allenp 17y ago
  Why would the cost of making a Verizon/Sprint compatible phone outweigh the profit from those customers? What would the cost be to make a phone with both radios? I just really can't imagine Apple not wanting to be available to the most consumers possible if the costs are low enough. Edit: also I just found this, so at the very least, it does look like there would be chips available to support this - http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/06/iphone.may.have.cdma.option.next.year/ http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/06/iphone.may.hav...
  - jonknee 17y ago
    Splitting the product line in two is a significant cost (besides engineering, you need to do QA, licensing, support, manufacturing etc). It's not as simple as switching out the chips, mobile phones are very complicated and smartphone in particular are exceedingly so. Engineering is in a constant battle with design to come up with something that works, even something as simple as finishes/paint cause great differences in reception and need to be customized for the radio and radio placement. I'm sure they'd do it if they thought it would be profitable, but they'd also be giving up the exclusivity money from AT&T which has to factor into it.

My unscientific prediction: Andoid has only a few months to catch up to iPhone by June 2010, when the exclusivity deal with AT&T ends. This is not nearly enough.

dkokelley 17y ago

I think the Droid will help quite a bit, provided Apple doesn't have much up their sleeve to announce in June.

halo 17y ago

I disagree. There is no deadline, especially not in a market where people purchase new phones every 18-24 months. I can see Android's sales continuing to trickle upward as prices drop on phone hardware, as companies use their brand loyalty to push Android phones on those upgrading, as new manufacturers enter the fray, and as the public are clearer about what 'Android' is. I think people expected too much from Android on day one. Android's only been a multi-manufacturer platform for about 3 months and before then were only two rather clunky handsets which were both basically rush-released. It was never going to have the immediate impact that the iPhone had due to it being later to market, not having sales of the iPod to drive it forward, having less brand recongition and less marketing behind it. The nature of the beast is that it was always going to be a slow burner.

davidw 17y ago

A T and T is not really a concern in most of the world, so at best that concerns the US market, which has been, until the iPhone, a bit of a backwater in terms of mobile phone stuff. I see Apple conquering a nice share of the market, maybe even larger than anyone else, but still well under 50%. If everyone has one, they lose their cachet. Also, Android will probably never be quite as beautiful, but if you combine 'good enough' with a far more open system, and a platform that people can innovate on, I think that, long term, it will do quite well. I sure hope so; I'm simply not interested in owning devices that I can't load my own code on, and that also require the ownership of a Mac just to develop on.

nearestneighbor 17y ago
I'm simply not interested in owning devices that I can't load my own code on The average consumer doesn't care about this.
- davidw 17y ago
  Good for them, I was talking about myself in that phrase, which is why I prefaced it with "I sure hope so". I do think that open tends to win out over closed, though, with time, because the advantages for developers and businesses translate into advantages for everyone.
  - tjogin 17y ago
    I agree that advantages for developers and businesses are key to success in the long term, for any platform. But I don't agree that openness of the platform is necessarily the exclusive nor primary way of doing that — it's just a way of doing that. Right now, Apple's platform is clearly offering key advantages to developers and businesses, in spite of not offering a very open platform. Personally, I hope both Google, RIM and Palm manage to catch up in this department. Strong competition between these vendors should offer plenty of incentives for them to improve their own platforms. Apple certainly seem to need a bit of extra motivation to improve the train-wreck that is the AppStore approval process — right now I think their success is blinding their ability to see many of their flaws.
    - davidw 17y ago
      > Right now, Apple's platform is clearly offering key advantages to developers and businesses, in spite of not offering a very open platform. It absolutely blew the competition out of the water, so yeah, that's what the 'key advantages' are. Everyone had been muddling along with their fiddly Nokia interfaces, which aren't bad, but nowhere near as nice or cool as the iPhone. However, Android looks to be 'good enough' in terms of competition, much like Windows was 'good enough' when competing with the Mac, and much more open in terms of what it ran on. The big open question for me about Android is fragmentation. With j2me staring them in the face, it's something they have to be thinking about a great deal, and I'd really love to know what they actually think about it. In any case, between a closed, proprietary platform and an open source one, I know where my own loyalties lie. There is tons of work in this field, and I will simply not bother with mobile if it ends up being 'owned' by Apple.

jonknee 17y ago

Where's Apple going to go? T-Mobile? They have even less 3G coverage than AT&T. They could go to major effort and redesign the radio to be able to get on Verizon or Sprint, but considering every other worldwide market they target is GSM I don't really see that happening (other than a few prototypes to light a fire under AT&T).

allenp 17y ago
Why would the cost of making a Verizon/Sprint compatible phone outweigh the profit from those customers? What would the cost be to make a phone with both radios? I just really can't imagine Apple not wanting to be available to the most consumers possible if the costs are low enough. Edit: also I just found this, so at the very least, it does look like there would be chips available to support this - http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/06/iphone.may.have.cdma.option.next.year/ http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/06/iphone.may.hav...
- jonknee 17y ago
  Splitting the product line in two is a significant cost (besides engineering, you need to do QA, licensing, support, manufacturing etc). It's not as simple as switching out the chips, mobile phones are very complicated and smartphone in particular are exceedingly so. Engineering is in a constant battle with design to come up with something that works, even something as simple as finishes/paint cause great differences in reception and need to be customized for the radio and radio placement. I'm sure they'd do it if they thought it would be profitable, but they'd also be giving up the exclusivity money from AT&T which has to factor into it.