Posted on 08/02/2010 10:32:17 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's happening, Apple!
Google's free and open-source Android operating system shot past its competitors last quarter to become the top-selling U.S. smartphone OS, according to research firm Canalys.
Android accounted for 34% of the 14.7 million smartphones sold in the U.S. last quarter, while RIM was 32.1% of the market and Apple was 21.7%, Canalys estimates. That's a huge victory for Google, which was zero two years ago.
Yes, Apple's iPhone 4 didn't launch until the very end of the quarter, and Q3 should be bigger for Apple. But the fact that Google is anywhere near Apple's market share -- let alone halfway above it -- must concern both Apple and RIM.
What does it mean for Apple? It's time to start selling the iPhone at more U.S. carriers, and not just AT&T.
Apple must sell the iPhone at Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. carrier, as soon as possible, and potentially at T-Mobile, too. In the U.S. smartphone market, carriers still handle most of the distribution -- Google learned this the hard way when its would-be-disruptor Nexus One store flopped. And now only about a third of iPhone buyers are switching to AT&T from other carriers. So if Apple wants to take the top position in the market, it's going to have to sell the iPhone at more carriers.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
A lot of phones have had a lot of serious problems recently. Somehow, mainly the iPhone's seem to get the headlines, and get posted here. The HTC Eris even had the "silent call bug" where it calls, but the parties can't hear each other. Only a reboot could clear it. One person had this happen when trying to call 911 to report an accident, had to wait the couple minutes for the reboot to do it. The EVO 4G has a problem with grounding on the screen contacts making the touch screen freak out, keeping you from doing anything. At least with the iPhone you could just hold it differently and still make that emergency call.
I posted a few months back in another thread that Androids will take the lead by a year's time.
Many agreed that it will happen if Apple sticks to AT&T. Apple is severely limited in how many phones can be sold without getting at least Verizon on board. With a vacuum of even halfway decent touch phones at Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, Android was sure to sell well.
"Good enough" rules in volume. Android was "good enough" for me, given that the alternative was to switch from Verizon to AT&T.
Just in time for a massive tax hike that won't be helping anyone. Lots of folks may just sit tight with what they have in hand as their disposable income is stripped away.
“Apple must sell the iPhone at Verizon Wireless....”
Absolutely. I would own an iPhone today if they had. Instead, I am now committed to my new Droid X.... so far, I like it.
I lived through that, and I don't know where you get your attempted monopoly idea from. At that time, most home computer systems had their own operating system and didn't play well with others. Microsoft got its initial success by writing BASIC for multiple incompatible pre-PC systems like Apple, Atari, Commodore and TRS-80.
IBM was the one who came up with the idea of using commodity parts to build a system so that everybody would be compatible, and INTENDED to create a monopoly with it, leveraging the copyright on the BIOS to retain control. That monopoly didn't appear because Compaq reverse-engineered the BIOS in a lawsuit-proof manner, and Bill Gates was smart enough to retain control of the default OS shipped with PCs (MS-DOS).
After the PC, most of those incompatible computer makers went out of the computer business, like Atari, Commodore and TRS-80 (Tandy played with making PCs for a while). Apple was the only one that remained using the pre-PC business model.
Looks like he still is not very teachable and will quickly fall flat on his face a second time.
As opposed to that bastion of PC hardware, Dell, which is falling flat on its face. Turns out making commodity PCs isn't all that profitable, and Dell's best profit years were a sham, profits inflated by Intel paying off Dell to not use AMD chips, illegal accounting tricks used to hide that fact. Dell paid the SEC $100 million in fines for it, and Mr. Dell had to shell some out personally, too.
People just don't like being gouged, overcharged or forced to buy a product.
Turns out there's a rather lucrative market of people who are tired of having mediocre goods shoveled to them, too. That's where Apple comes in.
The moment a better product that offers a better bargain or choices comes along, consumers quickly vote with their feet.
That's probably why Apple's computer sales have been growing at a higher percentage rate than other PC OEMs for years.
Well, fair enough, but it’s not fast enough. Folks don’t wait very well. I couldn’t wait and now I’m locked into a Droid, so Apple will now have to wait for a few years for my business.
It seems to me that if Apple is truly going to contract with Verizon, it would have been better for them to clearly advertise that impending change. “Rumors” that this is coming, just isn’t enough to keep a good many of us waiting, and waiting and waiting.
AT&T reported they activated 3.2 million iPhone 4 units in the 2nd Quarter of 2010. ONE company accounts for 1/5th of the smart phones sold in the US... And claims the entire lion's share of the profits. The Android makers are busy giving away phones.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Android, being Google's baby, is built to sync all that info with Gmail. So what you do is sync Outlook with Gmail, and then Android will sync with Gmail. You'll need to install Google Calendar Sync to do the first part.
More recent Android versions will work directly with Exchange.
We know that Apple has renegotiated the contract with AT&T at least once, probably twice. Either time gave Apple a way out of the exclusivity. AT&T must be ponying up some good terms to keep Apple exclusive, to the disappointment of the rest of us. One term we do know is the no-contract data rates for the iPad — pretty darn good.
Or just put a free gratis bumper on it and hold it any way you want and make the emergency call...:o)
It's not a matter of choice, the exclusive contract Apple signed with Cingular before AT&T acquired them was for five years. That will expire in January 2012.
See #29.
This is one of those times I disagree with Apple’s strategy (and I know there are some technical reasons for it, but still.) You can buy Android phones from several carriers not just AwfulT&T. So it is understandable that they would gain market share. I’ve had Palm Treo and Blackberry, based on the dictates of my company. I now have the HTC Hero (substantially better than either of those two) and would have an iPhone except for being locked in to Sprint for a while.
RIM still makes their own OS, HP bought Palm with the express intention of continuing to develop WebOS, Nokia still uses Symbian. The appearance of Android is far more disastrous for MS in the phone space than anyone else.
I just got my phone upgrade with Verizon.
If they’d had an iPhone I might have gotten it. Looked at the Droid X. That is one big clunky phone and the sync options for my Mac are minimal. Instead, I stayed old school and got a Samsung Convoy because I do a lot of outdoor stuff. Ruggedized and long long battery life.
It reminds me of that bumper sticker about honor roll kids -> “My phone can beat up your smart phone”.
I figure by the time another two years is up Verizon will have gotten iPhone, and most importantly, gotten the kinks out of it using someone else.
It's also a fact that IBM was not interested in a private PC market at the time. They laughed at Bill Gates when he went to them, asking them for support and suggested that it would revolutionize the PC World. They were only interested in Corporate and business/office applications.
As far as the market share, MS still outnumbers Apple by over 10 to 1. (Setting the iPhone thing aside.)
Check out a recent movie called “The Pirates of Silicone Valley”. It explains the history nicely and was well done. Anthony Michael Hall played Bill Gates in the movie and did a great job of displaying his nature.
Twice. The first negotiation was with Cingular and then with ATT two years ago to extend the original terms. BEFORE Droid came out. I think Apple just saw NO serious competition and thought they could play the profits game a little longer. Now, of course, everyone knows the Droid while inferior in construction and security is nevertheless taking huge market share by the virtual monopoly on Verizon. Apple just missed the prediction of Droid and how fast Google would bring it to bear. They will recover and dominate. But it will be 2011 and 2012 not 2010. Droid wins 1 out of the last 4 years. I can live with that.
Please explain your monopoly comment. Android phones are available on all of the big 4 carriers and some of the smaller ones I believe. Verizon sells phones with the Blackberry OS, Web OS and WinMo in addition to Android. I don’t see a monopoly going either way.
Sure. I do not mean monopoly in the traditional sense where one owns the means and the items of the sale, but just that due to being the first to come up with the idea, Apple is excluded from the largest market and Google being 2nd in, is not and thus has the market all to themselves. Not, Monopoly the pejorative, but just monopoly the exclusive. This ends in 6 months. And I am saying Google better make GOOD of it now, cause when iPhone 5 is on Verizon, Apple will be the largest. The field is unequal, by contract, and soon it will be equal and that’s all.
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