Sure,
Android is a brand new operating system at a seemingly huge disadvantage to other, more entrenched household names like
Windows Mobile or Symbian. Well, all that could change -- at least according to research just released by Gartner, Inc. The company's report claims that Android could claim upwards of 14 percent of the global mobile operating system share by 2012 (it now has less than 2 percent). This would make it the number two (behind
Symbian OS) phone OS in the world. The main factors behind this surge, according to Gartner's report, are the fact that Android is a Google-backed proposition, a company which will continue to offer more cloud-computing services and apps which will increasingly draw users into its web. They also note Android's "blend" of app heaviness (making it like the iPhone) combined with the task-mastering of Windows Mobile and BlackBerry smartphones. We'll let you know when Grandma Elly has a
Sholes -- that's the real test of success and popularity in our world.
posted October 7th 2009 7:32PM
Android is designed from the ground up to be a platform for applications. It was built that way from the beginning, even before Apple announced their App Store. Why would you bitch and moan because the suite of applications that came on your phone don't offer all the functionality you want? They were never intended to.
It's just like buying a Windows computer. Would you really complain because you have to install additional software on it before it does anything useful? If anything, you should be pleased that most Android phones come with minimal software on them because it allows you to build up your own personal collection of apps and functionality without dealing with preinstalled bloatware.
If Android were designed as a MID OS, then ok, it's fine. But I thought it's a smartphone OS. In that case, where do you draw the line between what should be included and what shouldn't? Would you mind having to download a contacts app? To me, all phones should have call meters.
True, Windows has been criticised for forcing IE on people. But there are (arguably) better, free alternatives out there like Firefox. For Bluetooth on the HTC Magic, I have yet to see any free apps to enable file sharing or syncing, and no apps at all to enable tethering. Why should I have to pay more to add features to my "premium" phone, when almost every other lesser phone has them?
Seriously who walks onto a store n says " I want to buy a smartphone with android os."
does the average consumer say do I want symbian, iPhone os, winmo. Bbos, or webos? Not ! Overhyping analysts got it all wrong. Android can try.
The average consumer could give a rats a$$ about what os a smartphone has. It all about hardware software compatibilty. Whatever facilitates apps for cust.
Will come out on top.seriously who would rather buy htc over apple brand. Exactly.
Btw hood luck on any htc phone .once it craps out on you. You'll have no recourse. They're warranty policy blows. Mark my words.
I think the researchi is right.Right now Android has only 2% of the market, but already has 8500 apps (yes iphones has 10 times that) but as Android share grows, so will apps. Even if they don't catch apple, they will still have 80% or more of the apps that really count (I can survive with "only" 5 solitaire games, I don't need 50)
Apps developers are not dying to write apps for 6 different OSs.
We've got Windows Mobile, Iphone, WebOS, Symbian, Android and Blackberry.
The research says that Android will be #2 with a 14%. So all of this 6 OSs, will still have a nice share. If all but the #1 OS are tied up at 14%, we are talking that the 1st place will have 30%, and all the others 14%!!!
I think that the weakes competitors are Windows and WebOS. Windows sucks, and windows mobile won't be ready for another year. They have lost the war.
WebOS is nice, but Palm is not Apple. They won't be able to mantain a nice market share (right now they almost don't have any apps)
I think Symbiam will loose ground very fast. They don't offer anything special...is very NOKIA, no thrills at all.
Blackberry is very strong, they have almost their own ecosystem!!!
There is no iphone killer. But if you see and HTC Hero even today, it is a perfectly good alternative.
So yes, I think easily Android could grow to 14%. Actually, I think it will be even higher. I think this will be the market share of every OS in a couple years
1. Android
2. Symbiam (because of the installed base, but sales are going down)
3. Iphone
4. Blackberry
5 and 6. WebOS/Windows
@ik, everything you said is right on, except that the android market has over 12k apps now, and it keeps growing.
ik...
Marketshare is measured on a quarter by quarter basis. Installed base may not help a clunky OS.
well htc phones have not exploded or imploded and they have a real warranty as where apple has every rep. say you abused your phone u did something wrong you gotta buy a new one, and if it exploded sign this paper that says you can never talking about your phone blowing up and almost killing you or we will sue you for all you have to get a refurbished replacement sent out to you with standard shipping you probably have to pay for
Here the thing though. People are going to get attached whatever applications they have on their phone, so likely they want the next phone to run the apps they have now. Maybe I'm wrong, but when you've paid for the geocaching app and the knitting app and the iridium flare app, you have some incentive to return to the same platform.
I think over time more and more apps will be cross platfrom but I think this is why it all these makers are trying to grab as much market share as possible now.
Me? My phone isn't smart yet....
Warranty? I've been using smartphones for quite a while (and come to think of it, almost all of them have been from HTC) and I've never had to use a warranty. The lifespan of a smartphone is already pretty short (I don't know anybody who has stuck with the same smartphone for over a year without upgrading), if you take even moderately good care of your gear then you'll never have to worry about warranties.
But I love Google. Stop being so ungrateful and a hater. They have done wonderful things for the average techie Joe. They want to give me free spectrum, voip, an "open" OS, open cell phone, a personal PBX, good search results, competition to make M$ get off its ass, they are on a rush to make our planet green, gigs of email storage and a clean interface, a shit load of free services I may never use, etc.....
So what they have ads! You expect them to pull cash out of their ass? and kudos for them and their stocks. I hope they make more cash than Microsoft by 2012 so we can have some balance.
I hope to see Android really compete and maybe this will help encourage Microsoft to make WinMo 7 really awesome.
Android is free to the cell phone maker AFIAK.
That should make for some pretty rapid growth.
A lot of people like free.
Yeah you know herpes is free too right?
@aden
Herpes is VERY popular.
If you are making a product with extremely tight margins, it will be pretty sweet to get an OS for free, rather than pay the Microsoft or Symbian tax.
I love the fact that they finally admit that OSX is the best mobile operating system ever.
This isn't "research" its rampant wild-arse speculation.
I could randomly throw together some numbers too and probably come up with an equaly supportable conclusion that Fisher-Price will be the number 2 smart phone OS by some arbitrary date (lets say 2021).
Yay Android :D
I'll take free ad supported mostly open easily customizable flashable Android over other crap any day thanks |:-D
I just have to LOL at all the Apple fanatics that just got a giant wet fish of reality slapped in their face when they realized that here in the real world "Ugly, non trendy, no fart app, no carrier subsidy for poser "rich" people" Symbian is actually the leading smartphone OS in the world. (with S40 heading up the feature phone market share)
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Good for Android though, it's good to see more choice coming to the mobile market. Android, Win Mo, and Symbian ect are great examples of a platform across multiple pieces of hardware (whereas blackberry/Iphone OS are really 1 OEM specific). Look at what having an OS like windows has done for the PC market. Say what you will, but look at the wealth of choice in PC's that wasn't there 10 years ago, graphics cards, peripherals ect ect, if you want it, it's there.
Here's hoping in 5 years you can buy a variety of mobile phone shells, stuff them with the screen you want, processor, RAM, storage, cell radio ect... then load it with your OS of choice (guess well have to Hackintosh ourselves some Iphone OS on one) and go. Many people though this idea was crazy 25 years ago with the PC, but I think if technology keeps pushing this way, we might just see it for both laptops and mobile phones in our life time.
You do know that Nokia has been losing money hand over fist this year, right? It isn't always about market share, it's about profitability.
OM NOM NOM
Am i the only who is noticing the "open platform" of android is being completely locked down by the companies utilizing it?
It doesn't change that Android is still open source (which is all "open platform" means). Manufacturers can do whatever they want with it, but the base will always be open source. People in general imagine too much when they think "open". That said, Google seems to be working to try to lessen restrictions by carriers (for example they got AT&T to relent on VOIP and Verizon seems to be on board also).
You mean like Google themselves?
"Google hits Android ROM modder with a cease-and-desist letter
by Nilay Patel posted Sep 24th 2009 at 10:26PM
So this is interesting: apparently Google's hit the developer of the Cyanogen modded Android ROM with a cease-and-desist letter, asking him to stop distributing the closed-source Google apps like Gmail, Maps, and YouTube. What's a little strange is that Cyanogen is targeted at "Google Experience" devices like the G1 and myTouch, so it's not like Google is really protecting anything here -- leading us to wonder if they're just using the copyright argument to shut down a popular mod that's tempted over 30,000 users into rooting their phones. That's just speculation on our part, though -- the dev says he's trying to open a dialogue with Google, so perhaps we'll find out some more answers soon."
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/24/google-hits-android-rom-modder-with-a-cease-and-desist-letter/
Android is less open to customization and modding at this point than WinMo, unless you want to get slapped with a cease and desist from Google themselves.
@ windows that was just the closed sourced app, not the core open sourced OS, which i could pull off of Git hub right now if i wanted, name me one other OS that you can pull the most recent Code from. None that i know of they are locked down even Maemo if i am not mistaken. Any one can mod Android they just can't include the Google apps.
Besides Cyanogen is back at making roms.
In other news research says Pigs may fly by 2015.
Good thing Android doesn't have the dreaded diabeetus
i like how ppl think iphone dominates the market. it is cute in an ignorant child sort of way.i also like how these same ppl said that nokia was dead.... 3 years ago. you would think they went to theor grave with 42% of the market. iphone really dominated that with their 14%. cos 14 is bigger than 42 and growing...
New report released :
In 3 years time, one thing could be more popular than another. Or not.
The headline and the text is misleading, because the Gartner prediction is about SMARTphone operating systems, not all mobile operating systems.
The vast majority of handsets sold are not smartphones but dumb and feature phones which *gasp* run an OS too. Nokia still sells by far the most smartphones, ~18,4M in Q2 with RIM on the second place with ~7,7M units. Now only Nokia _smart_phones use Symbian, not all Nokia phones. The total number of Nokia handsets sold Q209 was 103,2M meaning that in addition to those 18,4M Symbian smartphones Nokia _also_ sold 84,8 million dumb- and featurephones with S40 or S30 neither of which runs Symbian. Samsung does this on a similar scale.
So please, correct this article headline to "Android could nab second place in smartphone operating systems by 2012, says research", because "smartphone os market share" and "mobile os market share" are two very different things and the original Gartner article was about the former.
A fair observation. Regardless, I think most people will come into this article with the assumption that it's talking about smartphones because those are the only phones that have OSs that anybody has actually heard of. "Mobile Operating System" is largely synonymous with "Smartphone Operating System" for most people.
I can believe it. I got a G1 when it first came out just because I've been a long time T-Mobile customer and I was tired of Windows Mobile, but since then just about everyone who has seen it and played with it has ended up buying an Android device of their own. Specifically, that's people who were still carrying dumbphones and then played with it. It's a really easy leap to make with Android since it doesn't have the perception of turning you into an "iPhone person" or a "Blackberry person."
I think my phone has converted about seven or eight people by now, and that's with the only options being available on T-Mobile. Now that Verizon and Sprint are getting some Android phones there's going to be very little excuse for anyone to stick with dumbphones anymore (outside of data plan cost, anyway). I'm sure that AT&T won't be far behind once they realize that the demand is there.
I think as Android evolves it's going to ultimately become the real Windows Desktop of the smartphone world. Offered by almost all manufacturers, widely supported by software vendors, and generally considered to be the standard for non-Apple people.
Yeah, great. In Australia, Toyota sells the most cars. They also have the most model variants. They do not, however, have the biggest selling car. That belongs to Holden (GM).
My point? Android SHOULD have a bigger market share than the iPhone if it has so many variants. It still might not be the biggest seller (most popular) as an individual model, though.
Surprised the iPhone seems left off of marketshare consideration.
Where's your precious iGod now beeches! MWAHAHAHA