Speaking of Windows Phone – it seems like it’s not happening.
Telecom executives for years have trumpeted the need for a new cellphone platform to provide a counterweight to the dominance of Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. Maybe it could be BlackBerry. Or maybe Windows.
Or maybe not. According to the data from IDC, the two top players are only getting stronger, grabbing 96.4% of global smartphone shipments in the second quarter, up from 92.6% a year ago.
Windows Phone’s share of shipments fell to 2.5% of the total from 3.4% a year ago, as shipments dropped by more than 9%. BlackBerry’s share fell to 0.5% from 2.8% – below the market share of the “other” category – amid a total collapse in shipments.
This is a two-horse race, and the rest is fighting over the scraps. Those scraps are enough for newcomers such as Jolla, who don’t really need the massive numbers to keep a small company alive, but it’s the death knell for platforms from larger, established companies with demanding shareholders.
So far, the whole Windows Phone experiment has been a disaster for Microsoft (and Nokia). They’ve had to pour so much money into Windows Phone just to keep it alive that it will take them 5-10 years before they will ever make any profit on the platform – and that’s assuming it actually takes off. If it continues to muddle as it does now, it will remain a huge money pit – and at some point, shareholders and the new CEO will question its existence.
Being forced to choose between expensive devices (iOS) and crap OS (Android) is not good. There is certainly a need for a middle ground. Be it Windows Phone or Blackberry OS, or another – no matter. To the extend of considering switching myself to Blackberry OS (from the now crappy and ever slowing down Galaxy Note 1) – I recently bought a Z10 for about 200 EUR (VAT included) and I’m very impressed of the polish and business-centric approach of this OS.
iOS devices are not more expensive than most popular Android devices.
Android is not crap.
Edited 2014-08-15 11:54 UTC
If you have a lot of experience of using iOS or Windows Phone, then Android will definitely feel more than a little clumsey. I think the fact that iOS users (depite being driven down < 10% in some regions) occuppy a dominant position in usage stats (web+app) is very telling about the strength of its aging, but highly usable UI.
Edited 2014-08-15 12:28 UTC
I use all three. iOS is the worst user experience by some considerable margin.
I really like Windows phone, although I do use it for work and not for personal use.
You must be focusing on one particular case if you think that iOS is the worst user experience by some considerable margin.
When it comes to basic usage, stability, consistency, and reliability iOS is by far the best. It’s had the same stable OS, layout, and functionality going on 7 years now. It always works and it’s users aren’t left to dig through settings or pair it to a computer to do anything. The Apple store will always help with and/or fix your device, often for free.
When people move from iOS to another platform it’s because they want to customize, or hack, or just can’t afford to stay in the apple ecosphere. It’s not because the thing is a piece of garbage. No one calls it garbage because it’s a class-leading mobile OS.
When people move to iOS from another platform it’s because they just want something that works, has good battery life, and doesn’t lose their data.
Except, this is simply not true. iOS applications are notoriously inconsistent, with functionality randomly thrown all over the place for each application “because design”. In the meantime, Holo Android applications – by far the majority of popular applications by now – all work the same way, have their functionality in the same place, and so on.
Stability is also a very contentious point, since iOS 7 has been notoriously unstable for many, many people. Even the die-hard apple bloggers like Gruber & Co. complain about it on Twitter all the time.
I’m sorry, but iOS is simply no longer “by far the best” compared to the competition. It may have been back in the Android 2.x days, but after that? Hell no. Today, the two major platforms are so incredibly similar in many ways that “best” really comes down to “my personal preferences” instead of some objectively quantifiable point.
Edited 2014-08-15 13:33 UTC
Your words makes sense, Thom, but then I use an Android handset, and it can’t do, (or I can’t get it do) the basic things that my iPhone 4 has been doing for many years.
And time after time after time – I see/use my friend’s new Android that he’s bragging about, and 4 months later he has an iPhone.
Droid’s in the US are still very much “damn I couldn’t get an iPhone” or “damn I wouldn’t want an iPhone”. Apple’s success has added “damn I won’t get the same phone as everyone else” to the Android customer profile.
Android is very much living in the shadow of iPhone. Even their ads attack iPhone users (like Apple would attack Windows users). You don’t think every Android programer in the world isn’t watching Apple’s iOS announcements so they can start the copy machines?
What basic things can your amaze balls iPhone do that an android cannot?
off the top of my head here are things i do with my ancient iPhone most days. If I had a Droid I’d need it to do this type of stuff:
1- put up a free hotspot anywhere with 2 “clicks”
2- keep synced all of my email, notes, calendars, phone#’s, documents, bookmarks, pictures, music, videos, and workout data with my laptop, in the background with no help from me. 0 clicks.
3- stream audio, auto-pause if skype, call, or video call is coming in, and restart stream once call is finished
4- be a good phone and text machine get my scores and news updates and do lots of browsing. pay my bills to the phone company, insurance, cable, etc. through secure apps.
5- control my roku and throw content around the house to my rokus and appletv
6- capture lots of video, both HD and filtered/vintage style, do a quick edit of video, and send off the device.
7- slide into my akai control surface and become the synth engine so I have a nice portable synth rig
8- act as a general control surface for other apps: reason, ableton live, traktor
9- record and upload to soundcloud,
and most importantly…
10- don’t ever lose my data. ever! don’t misplace it, weirdly name it, or otherwise delete it.
this is the main reasons friends of mine switch to iOS. either ignorance, error, or hardware failure causes data loss on Android and they know I haven’t lost mobile data in years, they see i do everything on 1 iPhone year after year, and they make an investment in stability.
If Android is doing this stuff I listed above with minimal fuss and maximum success then it has advanced as an OS.
I’ve been doing things like this for years now, on the same little glass and metal iOS device, and it’s pretty amazing. Every iPhone i’ve owned is better than the last so I’ll either get a 5S or a 6, probably in the next year. I just hope the screen isn’t too big for 1 thumb use, I hate those phablet things, make up your mind!
Android does all these things? And in many cases, even better?
Are you just misinformed? Or trolling?
I honestly didn’t know if Android did all of this without selling my identity to advertisers? Does it?
Edited 2014-08-15 16:39 UTC
It does. There’s no need to use Google’s services on Android. You can be “advertising free” on Android.
Which is interesting, because you cannot be advertising free on iOS. There’s no way to run iOS without handing over all your data to Apple, whose privacy policy allows for the same third party access as Google.
The more you learn, huh!
How does one use the google services ad-free? Every last bit of your behavior on the google services is sold to highest ad bidder.
I’ve never heard of such a ting. Please share, I’d love to be ad-free and sharing-free and still use the google services.
Also – Apple doesn’t share their data with anyone for revenue sake, they have other very profitable forms of revenue. Google does not.
That’s not the question you asked. As many Apple fanatics do, you’re shifting the goalposts. You asked if you can use Android without your information being passed on. You can.
However, you cannot do so with iOS.
You’re just misinformed. Apple does all the same stuff with your data that Google does. Their privacy policies are identical.
Edited 2014-08-15 19:10 UTC
I used to be in the internet advertising industry, Thom, in fact I used to work for a guy that helped invent the internet advertising industry.
There’s no way “Apple does the same thing as Google with it’s users personal data.”
Prove that Apple makes revenue off of my private browsing habits, my email contact list, or my buddies/friends. If you dig up something, prove that it is the primary revenue stream for the company.
This is why google exists. Facebook too. To profit from users personal data. It is the only form of revenue they have.
Apple makes hardware for profit and also collects 30% of everything you purchase through it.
Edited 2014-08-15 20:01 UTC
Since Apple’s derived revenue from such activity would be buried in one of its many parts, prove they don’t.
Yes, they probably report some of it in their Advertising revenues. But they probably hide more in things like charging for the SDK, etc.
One swipe from the top down to bring the menu, then one tap to turn the hotspot on?
That’s what Google’s services are for?
I think that’s more about what app you’re using than anything else.
Those are also about the apps, not the platform itself.
A quick look on Play Market reveals a dozen or so Roku-apps.
Uh, I’m somewhat baffled about this. Why do you think Android couldn’t do this?
Install the Soundcloud-app from Play Market?
I haven’t heard of this being an issue, either.
Thanks for the list, those sound like decent alternatives. Droid seems to be getting better, as long as you sell your identity to advertisers to get those google services.
However, I noticed how you skipped both audio items. I scan lists all day
The audio production is the most important stuff to me. Android audio is a mess.
I skipped them because I don’t even know what that stuff is. I simply have nothing to say.
I have heard something about how Android’s audio-stack doesn’t really suit for low-latency stuff at the moment and as far as I can remember reading Android L’s audio-stack is being reworked to allow for high-quality, low-latency stuff, so maybe there aren’t any good apps for the audio stuff now and maybe there will be once Android L arrives?
Android sound stack sucks for low latency.
There are Google IO 2013 and 2014 sessions about it, if you care to watch them.
That’s about what I have heard about the android audio code. I’m not an audio programmer either, though.
I can tell you latency is king evil in audio, and android has a whole lot of it, both in the audio subsystems and the screen input.
Just about every audio software company has unbelievable iOS apps, some doing things that no desktop or laptop can even do. Most of them are under $20, also nothing like the desktop market ($200+ for most good stuff).
I see lots of innovations happening in mobile media production, medical monitoring, and lifestyle assistants, and iOS is ingrained in all of those. And they don’t just have *something* in those categories, they have class-leading apps.
IOS does *not* do #10, trust me.
A friend of mine lost all her data on her iPhone 5 that was only about two weeks old.
They were able to restore it the first time but she had to take in in to Verizon to get it done. The second time it happened, a day or two later, they replaced her phone, but could not restore her data.
I can say the same, but the other way.
Sharing between applications, notifications, interactive notifications, trully multitasking, different keyboards… all came first in Android and took years for Apple to implement, and some still are not present (coming on next major update).
Are you for real ? I see people switching away from iPhone and staying on android. I live in the UK and once upon a time a trip in the tube and every one would have crackberry’s, this then rapidly changed to iPhones and now I see a huge amount of android phones and I have to say windows phone numbers here are increasing, ive seen quite a few nokias out in the wild recently which is surprising. I think nokias are heavily discounted here though.
The phone platform is Android – droid is some old verizon marketing and only applies to 3 manufacturers afaik.
Which Android would that be ? I have never seen Sony, LG, Motorola, Google, HTC etc attack iPhone users and they all have Android phones or develop Android.
Only manufacturer that I know of that has run adverts taking the piss out of iPhone users like yourself is Samsung and they have the leading market share of smart phones.
Its funny you bring this up as it was Tim Cook at WWDC in 2014 talking trash about Android – http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apples-tim-cook-just-ripped-181115795…
Most of it complete and utter FUD. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Google doing the same for iOS and Google are the parent company behind Android.
This is just wholly inaccurate.
On phone platforms Android has had widgets from first release Android 1.x (I should know I had the HTC G1) – low and behold ios 8 introduces widgets in 2014 http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/2/5772602/apple-will-bring-3rd-party… -> This is them trying to get feature parity with Android, not the other way around …
The notification / task bar on iOS again a rip off of Android.
The funniest thing about all of this Android / Apple noise is that Apple have in the past stated that they have been heavily influenced by Sony when it comes to design, what is hilarious about this is that Sony make Android phones.
If iPhone 6 actually gets a decent sized screen and Apple stop being such dick heads I might actually get an iphone 6, but this constant spreading shit makes me not want to spend any money on the phone. I swear the more I have to read misinformed shit like this the more I don’t want to drop any money on apple hardware, your misinformed crap doesn’t help sell iPhones.
More than that iPhone users tend to be a lot more uninformed. I suspect that also has to with the nature of iOS, where you’re essentially being told this is the way it is and this is how you do it, instead if showing choice and allowing users to choose what works best for them (within the platform).
Truth of the matter is that people can be trained and can get used to anything, whether it is the best way or not and disregard the method the user would use naturally given a choice.
All the surveys of customer loyalty and brand retention seem to show Apple customers are significantly more loyal than Android OEM customers. The most recent survey is here:
http://www.wds.co/apple-samsung-vs-rest/
This is also relevant
http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/06/25/investment.bank.study…
Except perhaps when Andy Rubin compared Apple to North Korea?
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/googles-andy-rubin-on-ever…
Or perhaps except when at the 2010 Google I/O Vic Gundotra compared Apple to 1984?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/20/google_android_announcement…
From the parent article:
Customer loyalty surveys mean jack hard empirical data is what matters, Android market share is increasing and Apples is decreasing, that is fact.
From the articles you posted:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/14/the-third-smartphone-ecosyst…
Then there is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEI4XRfHSJo
I ain’t interested in defending Googles honour its a multi billion dollar faceless corporation willing to sell any and all information it gathers about me, but Apple do act like dictators and everything Gundotra and Rubin said is on point and What Jobs said to begin with is a thousand times worse as it implies android users are all porn seeking perverts, which is a completely douche thing to say.
Edited 2014-08-17 12:37 UTC
And generally such people… I stopped recommending Apple at some point to not be associated with them.
I think another issue is that Android runs on such a wide gamut of devices, from pathetic single core 256MB pieces of junk, to 8-core 3GB superphones with amazing screens. A lot of people buy those cheap phones, or get them “free” with a new contract, and their opinion of Android is based on that. I’ve used Android on crap phones, midrange phones, and superphones, and I can only stand to use it on the latter. Even a good midrange phone becomes an exercise in patience on my part; on my Photon Q it sometimes takes ten seconds to load Hangouts, which defeats the purpose of shooting off a quick text message.
With iPhones, Apple tends to deprecate older models with each new major OS release; I was quite surprised that the 4 and 4S got iOS 7, and my sister’s 4S does struggle with it at times. Forced obsolescence it may be, but there is a reason behind it.
In contrast, even the cheapest WP devices are snappy and feel very fast, though there is a noticeable difference between, say, a Lumia 520 and 1520. The 520 is fast enough and good enough not to bug me during daily use, but the 1520 almost seems to know what I’m tapping before I tap it. Still, the fact that the slowest WP device outpaces a good mid-tier Android device on user experience says a lot. I’d be willing to bet that same 520 running Android would stutter and choke a good bit.
Yeah, it’s like people who go out and buy a $200 Windows PC from Wal-mart with like 30 crapplets in the system tray, watch it run slower than snot on a doorknob, and then they compare it to a $1,500 Mac, and complain about how bad Windows sucks.
Truth is, I have an iPhone 5s provided by my employer, and that thing rebooted itself more times in the first 2 weeks than my Nexus 4 has in the year and half I’ve had it. I just can’t buy this horseshit about how much more stable and polished iOS is anymore.
Did it ever occur to you that your iPhone is defective? Obviously not everyone’s iphone reboots itself multiple times a week. Clearly hardware failure.
I know not everyone’s does. But some do. And with some it’s several times a day, not several times a week.
But I would no longer say that Android is more stable than iOS. I got over that once I saw what happened with my daughter’s Android phones. Before that I thought Android was the be-all and end-all.
So there is some element of how use influences stability it would appear. YMMV.
It might be awhile before either of them is bullet proof.
Truth is, I have an iPhone 5s provided by my employer, and that thing rebooted itself more times in the first 2 weeks than my Nexus 4 has in the year and half I’ve had it
LOL Seems you’re unlucky person.
For an year and half my iPhone5 (iOS6) never rebooted or hang. iOS7 hang once on iPad 3, but that’s all.
These days even midrange phones are really good, specifically the motorola phones. They’re almost pure google android and the dev teams focused on making proper android run well, instead of wasting time on pointless modifications.
Not to mention Nexus or one plus one devices that are superphones at really low cost.
Edited 2014-08-15 19:43 UTC
I’d hardly consider the Nexus 4 or 5 a “superphone”, though they are better than the average mid-tier device of their respective generations.
I do get what you’re saying though; the current mid-tier devices are competitive with flagship phones from 2012 on performance, and if you’re going to spend ~$200 anyway, why not get a mid-tier device that will get a few OS updates instead of a flagship that is nearing the end of its support cycle?
I just find the idea of a communication device that stutters and hangs when trying to make a phone call or send a text message — its raison d’être — completely unacceptable. That’s an issue I’ve never experienced on Windows Phone or classic Blackberry, not to mention any feature phone, and only once on an iPhone. Yet it has happened on nearly every Android device I’ve owned, even flagships like the HTC One and Galaxy Note II. If it takes a quad core 2GHz 3GB RAM device to dial a number reliably, something is horribly broken.
I’d say generally that those days have long passed, unless you’re buying absolute garbage.
Motorola Photon Q, considered a high end phone when it came out, freshly wiped, takes up to 10 seconds to open Hangouts, a core messaging app. Nexus 4 running stock JB has camera stutter and occasional crashes when taking pictures. Galaxy Note 2, a flagship phone, the dialer crashes every third or fourth attempt to place or answer a call.
That kind of behavior is unacceptable on such powerful devices. You could blame it on OEM skins like TouchWiz or Blur, but what’s the excuse for the Nexus? If that’s the issue, why have I never had those problems on the HTC One and Evo 4G LTE I’ve owned, and on those phones I’ve had abysmal battery life compared to their generational equivalents? I think Android has some fundamental bugs that haven’t been properly addressed, and the OEMs aren’t concerned with helping Google fix them, as long as they can promote whiz-bang features that the other OEMs don’t have.
Or if you have a new class of carrier that provides hybrid VOIP-with-cell-backup service that uses a highly modified ROM.
In this case I am describing Republic Wireless. However the carrier is about 7 months into its Pilot Project after leaving Beta in the middle of last November and the primary support channel is user-based via a message forum system implemented with Jive.
So not the normal situation involving the normal distribution of normal users.
If one is trying to understand the appeal of different mobile devices then I think the narrow focus on just the hardware or just the capabilities and features of the operating system is a mistake. I suspect that most consumers will be interested in how a phone feels in the hand, and some will be interested in how good the camera is or how big the screen is. Most will interested in brand reputation (who isn’t when making a consumer purchase?). Most will be thinking about price and quality and what’s the best they can afford. And that’s probably it in terms of the actual device characteristics that affect purchase choice.
Most people are probably not interested in tech specs like CPUs (unless the phone feels slow) or screen resolution (unless the screen looks fuzzy or the colours are off), how much memory it does or does not have or whether it has a removable battery or SD slot. Neither do they have a great deal of interest in comparing different operating system and how they each work. Those things matter to some but not to most.
The purchase decisions of most consumers are probably affected by the following non-device factors and questions.
Will it be easy to switch my contacts and media/photo library from my old device to my new device? Is my investment in my library of media and apps compatible with the new device or do I have to start all over again?
Where can I buy the device and how helpful are the retail staff and what devices do they recommend. The issues of retail channels is absolutely critical to the dynamics of the device markets, it’s why the Apple retail chain is so very important for iOS, it’s why and where Samsung poured enormous resources to get to the front of the in-store suggestion queue, and it’s why the Chinese (and to some extent the Indian) market is markedly different to the rest of the world. Carrier and retail indifference is also an important reason why Windows Phone has struggled.
What are the comparative brand reputations and recognition of the device makers? Have I heard of the phone, or the company that makes it and what have I heard? It’s why Apple has invested countless billions in all the tiny but essential components of becoming a premium brand, it’s what Samsung has tried to do with it’s massive advertising and promotion spend, and partially achieved. The decision to brand Windows Phone with the Windows name did not help because most people had experienced Windows PCs as being tricky and somewhat unreliable.
How good and how easy is the customer support and service support systems for each brand of phone, who do I talk to if something goes wrong or I need help? This is where the Apple retail chain, it’s customer support system and the iron grip it has on blocking carrier fiddling with their devices is hugely important. The Apple retail system, where it is common for people who have damaged their devices to just be offered new ones, where the staff are actually trained not to try to sell you stuff, where you can drop in for any one of a continuous stream of high quality free seminars, training sessions and lectures on how to use your device, and where you can wander about trying stuff for hours and nobody ever comes up and offers to help you, is so very, very important in relation to what device you might buy next and which one you recommend to your friends. It’s also where there is a bit of a structural weakness for Android devices in that the device itself is an assembly of parts (OS, services, hardware) made by different companies and sold by yet other companies. Who to talk to if something goes wrong, where in the product stack the problem might lay, what sort of response you might get when seeking help or advice, are all much more varied and sometimes quite poor (and of course sometimes quite good), in the Android world. Again Windows phone lacks this level of obvious support.
Technology is collapsing into being a technically invisible sub stratum of everyday life, everyday objects and of consumer brands. If one wants to understand how the device markets will evolve look less to the history of the PC market and more to history of the major consumer markets.
iphone “has good battery life” – what planet do you live on? If only I had a dollar for ever time I heard, ‘do you have an iphone charger?’
I live on planet “my-4-year-old-iPhone-still-runs-all-day-on-one-charge.”
I also spend time on planet “I-still-get-4-hours-of-battery-as-a-wifi-hotspot-and-audio-streamer- and-browser-and-GPS-device.”
A whole day! go you!
4 years old. Where’s your 4 year old Android?
Where’s the Android that runs your business and your personal life day in and day out for years?
I have yet to see one of those. But successful entrepreneurs I see are relying on that iPhone and are happy enough to be repeat customers.
If things were even half as bad as you think for iOS there wouldn’t be the customer retention, satisfaction, or upgrade speed that is exhibited by the millions who use iOS.
That statement does not match the reality of iOS’ heavily dwindling market share.
I just don’t see those numbers, Thom. Real world verse some sort of manufacturing or sales numbers, I don’t know. I see no decline in iOS use in the real world, in fact I see it growing.
Nearly everyone has a smartphone in my city now, even old folks and luddites. So perhaps the share of smartphones that are iOS is less than 2 years ago, but they are still everywhere. There might be more droids but there’s more iPhones too.
Just like back in the 90’s, market share numbers can be twisted all about, and trying to summarize the whole planet is tricky. Sitting at meetings, watching people at restaurants, counting platform use at your company gives you a good read on what’s popular in the market. Those figures citing millions of handsets – many of them count the inventory sitting at stores and warehouses.
Finally, market share takes a back seat to profit share. The US Post Office has 100% marketshare and no profit. Apple profits more per handset than anyone, and they profit more per user than anyone. They also have the highest customer satisfaction rates and the highest customer retention rates so they are not overcharging customers, says the customers!
You can’t give away enough free plastic droids to take Apple’s money away from them.
Edited 2014-08-15 14:11 UTC
You live in the States, a very atypical place of just ~5% of world’s population. Think of it in the terms of SUVs or suburbia epidemics.
And only some customers “says” that.
Is that near planet: iphone 4s on ios 7 lasts 6-7 hours with minimal usage?
Cause, I visit that planet often. Its not a great place.
Everyone’s mileage may vary, especially on these old machines.
I rarely need to charge during the day on a 32gb iPhone 4 currently running iOS7.1.2.
I usually wake up with a full charge and don’t plug in again until that evening, unless there’s heavy use with the hotspot or I’m on the phone all day for meetings.
That puts me at about 12 hours of medium-lite use per charge. It will still go 2-3 days with low use. I don’t think it can do much more than 4-5 hours heavy use without a charge, and that’s dropped since it was new 4 years ago.
The battery has probably been cycled over 1200 times already.
How is the 4 on os 7? The 4s is pretty terrible, at least compared to how fluid ios 6 was on it. All sorts of jitter in the display, and random delays. It reminds me of a manufacturer update of android.
I’ll admit, I was and still kind of annoyed when apple seemingly arbitrarily forces a product upgrade to get newer software. But in the case of ios7, I really think they should have made it iphone 5 and above.
Yes, the particular case of actually using iOS. I have an Android phone for personal use, a Windows Phone for work use and a work iPad. The iPad does, admittedly, have great battery life, although this is in part because I try to avoid using it wherever possible – it’s too big, too heavy and iOS is a horrible, unintuitive mess. The keyboard is just the most glaring example of an OS that’s stalled about four years behind the alternatives.
Yes, the particular case of actually using iOS. I have an Android phone for personal use, a Windows Phone for work use and a work iPad. The iPad does, admittedly, have great battery life, although this is in part because I try to avoid using it wherever possible – it’s too big, too heavy and iOS is a horrible, unintuitive mess. The keyboard is just the most glaring example of an OS that’s stalled about four years behind the alternatives. [/q]
iOS is such a horrible, unintuitive mess that not only do most 4 year olds and grandparents figure it out easily, the other OS’s have nearly completely adopted it’s standards.
there’s a reason almost all smartphones look like iPhones from 5 feet away. that’s called intuitive design if everyone else immediately adopts it.
Very few four-year-olds can tie their own shoelaces. That doesn’t mean my shoes are poorly designed.
Also, the iPhone 5 looks more like the Galaxy S2 than it does any previous iPhone.
haha i’d argue that shoelace tying is poorly designed. just a simple change in the direction of the first loop improves it’s effectiveness. i learnt that from ted tv 🙂
Those who think iOS is so simple try this experiment: Find someone who has never used an iPhone. Hand one to them and tell them to turn on bluetooth. See how long it takes.
I’d have a hard time finding someone who has never used iOS at this point. I tried your test since I don’t ever use bluetooth.
My first thought pretending to be an amateur was to search for it, but nothing found on Bluetooth because iOS only searches content, not the system itself. Dead end there.
Then I thought “must be in the settings”. 1 click to open settings, 1 click to select bluetooth, 1 click to toggle it on.
Then I thought “aren’t main settings in the drag-up control panel?” (that they stole from android ;-)). Yep, 1 drag up to access that, then 1 click to toggle bluetooth.
Assuming they know what Bluetooth is I don’t see how that example shows the difficulty of using iOS. It’s either 4 clicks from anywhere to go home>settings>bluetooth>toggle or it’s 1 drag and 1 click from anywhere.
A better test might be to give the devices to 2nd graders, tell them to take some video, play some games, take a picture of themselves and send it to their parents (pre-loaded into the contacts list).
I’ve watched this sort of thing, and iOS seems to be much more intuitive. With various skins and ridiculousness on Android, you never know what you’re getting. iOS works the same way every time, and has for about 8 years now. Consistent targeting, mode switching, and app focus goes a long way.
I’ve also observed a group of elderly given Kindles, given training on how to use them, given 2 books and credit to buy more, and about 90% of them give up due to the complication of the OS.
It’s hard work, this UI design.
Android is the Windows of phone operating systems. Inconsistent, crashy, lack of polish, but usable if you’re willing to put up with it. No wonder Windows can’t gain a foothold, its niche is already taken
I guess Jolla and/or Firefox OS can take the place desktop Linux holds in this comparison. Still no place for Windows Phone.
Android is the Windows of phone operating systems. Inconsistent, crashy, lack of polish, but usable if you’re willing to put up with it. No wonder Windows can’t gain a foothold, its niche is already taken
I guess Jolla and/or Firefox OS can take the place desktop Linux holds in this comparison. Still no place for Windows Phone. [/q]
I would say it’s true if you’re using a crap phone or a phone from a vendor that loves piling unnecessary crap on to it. I rarely have troubles with my nexus phone and it’s still half-the price of an off-contract iPhone. I think the Android Silver vendor requirements and the switch from Dalvik to the new engine with Android L should speed stuff up nicely.
i’ve had a smartphone or PDA for over 16 years. i find one that works and then ride it into the ground. i hate upgrading and changing handsets more than once every couple of years.
maybe since iOS went mainstream, the users might be less informed overall?
i also hate plastic devices because they generally don’t survive my usage very long. wifey has the 5C though because she likes the light plastic and her plastic 3S lasted many years.
i’m also running Win7 and OSX 10.9 on my 4 year old laptop, generally remote controlling a Win8 server all day and doing pro-tools and other audio all evening.
that’s kind of irrelevant and similar to arguments apple used to make in the PC world. Apple loved comparing themselves to Dell and HP who used to be hugely inflated and totally ignore any other players
Outside of the big players there are tons of options on android that anyone can take advantage of with very little effort. Apple has always traditionally fought tooth and nail against this simple market.
And apple’s percent of the mobile market is approaching their numbers in the PC market pre iOS days.
“Lower-end devices drove Android, with 58.6% of all Android smartphones shipped costing less than $200, IDC said.”
So yes, Android devices are MUCH cheaper than IOS devices. (popular means most used, not best. Like popmusic that is the most listened, but not the best)
No idea if those phones are crap though
Well, here in Brazil, the supposed to be cheap iPhone 5C is around ~R$ 1.800,00 (~650 USD), while a decent Android phone almost as good, like Moto G, sells for R$ 650,00 (~270 USD).
Now, this could be nothing for you, but mMoto G is the best selling smartphone in here since its debut while iPhones are mostly niche now.
Same here in Poland. I can buy 2-3 MotoGs for the price of one iphone 5c. Apple hardware here is anything BUT cheap.
I woudn’t put MotoG (Cortext A7 based design) on par with 5c (~ comparable to S4).
While G is really nice device with great value 2 price ratio, it’s really not in the same league.
Not according to the market.
Facts are so annoying!
Even worse when they won’t go away!! (-;
I could write an argument against your assertions here, but Paul Thurrott has already done it: http://winsupersite.com/windows-phone/its-too-early-write-third-sma…
Every time Windows Phone posts poor figures, someone pops up with “Yeah, well, things will be better in the next two quarters!”. Then, when things are not significantly better, one of two things happen:
“Yeah, well, things will be better in the next two quarters!” again, or
“Yeah, well, the figures are still positive!”
Both are getting tiresome. Sales of Windows Phone are poor and getting poorer. Potential users have responded with a resounding shrug.
“IDC’s data shows that 7.4 million Windows Phone devices shipped in the second quarter, down from 8.2 million in the same period last year.”
Thats the same sort of volume that the iphone was shipping at about four years ago – nothing to shrug at
Once again, absolute numbers don’t mean diddly squat.
2.5% is almost a statistical error.
“absolute numbers don’t mean diddly squat”
Well if you view business as a dick measuring contest, then yeah go and measure using whatever numbers tickle your carriage.
If you are increasing your absolute numbers year on year – your business is growing. Growing business = good.
If you’re growing your absolute numbers but not tracking the general market trend I.e. your share is dropping, that’s not growth.
Once again, people will look at which ever figures fit their narrative about whichever system they have an emotional attachment to, and damn reality. Growth is down? Pick the numbers that are bigger and claim that’s the real growth! Those numbers not so good? Pick a different number! Gotta keep moving those goal posts so that your team “wins” every time, right?
Differences are:
4 years ago the smartphone market was way smaller than it is now so those 7.4 million handsets, selling for $650, which was an almost unheard of price at the time and is still not the norm by any means, represented a much different dynamic in the marketplace.
That 7.4 million wasn’t an example of decreasing sales numbers and loss of market share ; things were going the other direction for Apple.
Except that four years ago the iPhone had the premium segment all for itself, while Windows Phone today mostly sells budget devices (the most popular by far being the Lumia 520/521).
Also the global Smartphone market grew five-fold between Q2 2010 where it was only 63.3 million units, to Q2 2014 with 301.3 million units (according to IDC).
BlackBerry is going to release 2 phones in september: The Classic and the Passport. A lot of people expressed how “ugly” the passport is, but there is a lot of interest too.
I would give it a try!
I want the Passport – 100%. However, it’s probably going to be priced at a major premium, in which case I’ll have to pass
.
i have bb z10 as a work phone, I love the BB os, heck I am thinking about getting one for personal use, damn phones are getting too big
There are definitely some parallels to the desktop platform wars of the 90’s.
MS Windows in the 90’s — cheap*, everywhere, some amazing backoffice (sharing) features, a clumsy UI, lots of “me-too” features that aren’t completely finished, runs on almost everything which is both an advantage and disadvantage. Windows primary objective? To run Office best, to push Office sales, to collect that OEM fee for all those cheap PC’s.
(*the OS wasn’t cheap, but it came with almost every cheap PC)
Google Android in the last 4 years — cheap, everywhere, some amazing sharing features (not much backoffice), a clumsy UI, lots of “me-too” features that aren’t completely finished, runs on tons of phones which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Android’s primary objective? To run google services, to boost google ad revenue, and to collect that huge licensing fee to put Google services on the phone.
See, lots of shared traits and similarities in the market.
When you put Apple in the mix you see it more, because Apple hasn’t substantially changed their message or positioning, they just have met with far greater success than in the 90’s.
Macs in the 90’s — never “budget” or cheap, promoted seamless operation, stressed the stability and maturity of their 3rd party software, stressed environmental features of the physical box (fan volume, heat, posture, design), stressed reliability, used heavily in media production, many years of service holding it’s value, and operating in a more pain-free way than the competition.
iOS devices now — not usually budget or cheap (5C w/contract is $100 in US), promotes seamless operation, stresses the stability and maturity of it’s 3rd party software, stresses environmental features (hand comfort, design), stresses reliability, used heavily in media production, many years of service holds it’s value, and how iOS operates in a more pain-free way than the competition.
The big difference between then and now is that the marketplace largely agrees with Apple. In the 90’s Macs had <20% marketshare compared to Windows, even in the US.
iOS has anywhere from 60%-80% marketshare in the US, and largely dominates the “what is a smartphone” mindspace.
This success has given Apple the ability to tie up loose ends and ship mature features and products. It’s also given them the ability to get corporate america on board — see iTunes music/movie store, tickets and boarding passes, and soon health data stored and shared from your iOS device.
How many Troll posts are you going to make on one article? Just because you crawled out from under your rock for the first time since 2010 doesn’t make your posts relevant.
you calling me a troll? i read this site every day, been posting here for quite some time, since the BeOS days.
i think this “iOS is failing because of market share xyz” is crap and i’m defending my position.
i always try to state that i am in the US so many of my points might not translate to your market.
according to OSNews standard line of thinking iOS was a joke to start, no one used it, and then all of a sudden it’s being passed by android! it’s like it never existed. all i’ve done is list several ways it’s thriving.
killing time at work, i’ll stop now. go on with your computing lives.
Ok so please provide an evidence for this:
Edited 2014-08-16 05:52 UTC
LOL @ the assumption that Macs were *better* than their Windows counterparts in the late 90s. “Stability and maturity”, “reliability” and “environmental features” were an OS outdated by more than a decade, cooperative multitasking and mice that were actually painful to use. True enough, they were also expensive. Expensive and slow.
Apple computers turned competitive in performance when switching to Intel, and in features when OS X became usable around 10.3.
Seconded. I was a net admin for an advertising agency with about a 50/50 mix of PCs and Macs – PCs for the office staff and Macs for the “talent”.
The Macs, in the 90s at least, were nothing but temperamental little f*cking toasters – they caused me nothing but grief. They would cause broadcast storms on the network constantly, they overheated all the time, routine crashing, littering the servers with their little useless resource files and generally making my job a living hell.
I’m sorry, but as far as I am concerned Macs didn’t actually exist until OSX. Apple IIs were great machines, but everything between them and the switch over to Intel were nothing but glorified toys. System 7/8/9/whatever had some nice UI features and introduced some cool concepts and conventions, and early on it was very innovative, but the underpinnings were simply a joke and they never fixed it. Pre OSX Macs were never worth the trouble to me once Windows 95/NT came out and introduced the (non-Unix) world to doing more than one thing at a time…
By the mid 90s Macs became machines for running Photoshop or Illustrator (but definitely not at the same time).
This is coming from a current die hard Mac user by the way…
Microsoft has an archipelago, not an ecosystem. Hawaii, Easter island, and the Galapagos.
Xbox could wait foe Nintendo and Sony to stumble. Consoles are replaced, and there are few revisions. But Xbox is not a PC, tablet, media player or phone.
There is no Zune. An inexpensive media player like the iPod that would be a low-risk consumer intro to Windows Mobile (arm, small screen).
Phones, along with the contract or $600+ price tags are the only place WM is, and the 2 year cycle makes it high risk.
I’m not sure about the Surface class. Android and Aplle have tablets, and Google has discrete chromebooks, but Microsoft doesn’t seem to know Intel v. ARM, tablet or ultrabook or netbook, or what. It isn’t the phone version, but not the desktop.
Then we have PCs with windows ate. Vista II. It runs office, the UI broke the familiar.
How many versions do you have to write to work well across all platforms?
Console situation doesn’t look good for MS either. Steam Machines are coming and competition will only increase.
This is the year of desktop Linux!
This is how I see steam machines
Taken into account that Android is Linux and that, as of today, Windows has 14% device share left it happened already. Its done, past.
So how can I run GIMP, Unity, gcc, KDevelop, MySql, … in an Android phone?
Android is a Java based OS with the Linux kernel, quite different from a GNU/Linux distribution, which is what “Linux on the desktop” means.
If tomorrow Google decides to go Android/BSD, Android/QNX or whatever else for their kernel, no one besides geeks will notice.
Well, you could run a proper Linux-distro in a chroot-jail, though technically you’d be running the apps under Linux and Linux under Android, then
So where is chroot-jail app in Play store?
Rooting devices does not count.
Whoa, don’t be so serious. My comment was clearly made with tongue firmly in cheek o_o
I know.
I’ve used this one before with Debian for rooted devices, but there are many alternatives: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zpwebsites.linuxon…
A simpler one if you don’t want to root: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spartacusrex.spart…
For X11, plenty of options: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=x11&c=apps
Though I usually installed x11vnc on the linux chroot and then just VNCed in, handles zooming in native apps like openoffice better.
Edited 2014-08-17 02:25 UTC
Your argument is that it needs to run GIMP to be ‘Linux’? Serious? By that definition Windows is more Linux then Android cause it runs GIMP?
Nokia Lumia 520 or 530 are much more affordable…
iOS might be great and all for all devices but lack of what they failed or deny to do with Open PC’s when Microsoft drop to estimated 82% of Windows Desktop OS usage when coming from Desktop its a different story and LINUX already surpass Mac OS 8% usage…This what open source can do for phones when different developers are using the policy of android they can modified or changes the default apps of their taste but they can’t change or renamed the kernel os similar to rules from windows os….Apple restricts everything to themselves only and i can prove that only Maverick OS hackers barley run on AMD processors and custom NVIDIA support its nothing compare to the benchmarks from Windows PC’s or LINUX consider their effort but it won’t work with the next Apple OS version when the drivers only be apple approved and signed to run on Mac OS 10.10 and so on…..SORRY AMD CPU’s…TRY AGAIN NEXT TIME…so this idea that apple should always win won’t last long until their masses will abandon APPLE altogether for alternated os like Android and LINUX since they are still UNIX LIKE OS types left since the fall of true UNIX OS, and FreeBSD is considers is the last of its kind genetic blueprint design but strip all ATT code and still late in the game. That is the example of Microsoft to consider taking on Mobile devices space even its has easily software support but developers don’t have the time to mess with weak specs of their phones…and microsoft is not any good with ARM specs…since ARM CPU’s are short hand coded processors like IBM PowerPC back those days…but recoded and strip all useless IBM code and becoming the more efficient IBM PowerPC version on PHONES AND TABLETS..and UNIX LIKE OS already supported this processors back when IBM and HP servers where available those days…so this explained how optimized it became than Microsoft coming in late to support this RISC processors when NT only design for CISC x86 long code math processors than short word c++ Cortex processors…
Wow, talk about a wall of text.
Sources for that claim that Linux surpassed 8% desktop?… (no, really, that would be great news)
And you’re wrong at the end, NT was designed to be platform-agnostic – in fact, it started on RISC CPUs.
I don’t think is even a two-horse race anymore, I think Android is the only competitor, I don’t think the iPhone can keep up with the race in the next couple of years.
After an encounter with a swimming pool, I’ve been using a Lumia 520 for the past month while I wait for the iPhone 6. Other than being a little too agressive in how it suspends apps, I find it to be quite nice to use. Unfortunately, half of the apps I want to use don’t have a native WP version. And the marketplace really is a wasteland of bad knockoffs and web wrapper apps made by random third parties not associated with the services themselves. Honestly surprised that MS seems to not care at all about the blatant trademark infringement going on there.
Edited 2014-08-15 15:13 UTC
From the WSJ article:
IDC’s data shows that 7.4 million Windows Phone devices shipped in the second quarter, down from 8.2 million in the same period last year.
To declare the Windows Phone 8.1 ecosystem dead is quite premature, a kin to declaring a repressed but alive peasant in the classic 1975 movie Monty Python & The Holy Grail dead merely because he’s been thrown in the death cart with other victims of the plague.
The new Microsoft Nokia phones really didn’t start shipping until the beginning of July, which if my calendar on my Nexus 7 tablet hasn’t failed, is in the third quarter, not the second quarter. Moreover, at least here in the States, only T-Mobile has started selling and shipping the newer Lumias, such as the 635. AT&T, Verizon, and MetroPCS, a T-Mobile subsidiary, haven’t shipped them yet but will.
One thing that still boggles me is how both the iOS and Android platforms are still seeing rapid expansion and growth in the application space, when the preferred development tools for both are still, in my view, severely lacking, when compared to Windows Phone 8.1 (even 8 and 7/7.x). Apple’s XCode and Google’s Android Plugin for Eclipse, I don’t think offer an optimally productive tool for writing mobile apps when compared to Visual Studio. I think to get a true feel for how this space is doing would be to get numbers from Xamarin on developer licenses sold for its MonoTouch development kits. That might be a better measure, but might be difficult to get a hold of as Xamarin is privately held and may not release their numbers regularly, if at all.
That is what we keep on hearing. Wait for WP Mango, it will fix all problems and will make the platform desirable. No, wait for the Lumia 900, everybody will want one. No, wait for WP8. No, wait for WP8.1. No, wait for the next Lumia. ad infinitum.
Why should it matter this time what phone reaches the market?
They are only lacking if you grew into the idea that every development environment must be like Visual Studio. Otherwise, they are fine.
Choosing a free IDE like Eclipse was a very smart move for Google. It created a very low barrier to entry. Anybody with a $300 Linux PC and a $100 phone can start writing apps, and only needs to pay a $25 one time fee once they are ready to publish their apps.
If you prefer, you can use Visual Studio to develop Android and iOS apps using the Cordova integration.
What boggles the mind is how Windows fans still believe Visual Studio is the end all be all of development tools. When it, like just any other IDE, has some glaring shortcomings on its own right.
BTW, Google has been offering Android Studio for free for a while, which is a fairly competent IDE based off IntelliJ IDEA. It’s also multi platform, it runs on Windows, Macs, and Linux.
At the end of the day, Visual Studio, Android Studio, and Xcode are tools with their pros and their cons. And given how WP market share is now down to statistical error figures, it’s clear that the supposed awesomeness of Visual Studio is not a factor…
Regardless of using Eclipse or Android Studio, the actual Android Development Tools (ADT) plugins are buggy at best.
I do a lot of Android development, so I’ve learned to cope, but every time I have to do some Windows or OSX/iOS development, I notice how much more polished the tools for the “commercial” platforms are.
I absolutely agree Android is technologically much further along, the problem is, the quality of the implementation, or at least the finesse of the implementation leaves somethings to be desired IMHO.
Additionally,
Android has the worse support for native coding from all three major platforms.
At the Google IO 2014 Android Development Fireside:
The open source hero only provides a nice developer experience for their emulator on Windows.
Google and Android OEM get their money from Linux community work, but don’t support drivers or synchronization applications on Linux.
And thats the point. Native Development Kit (NDK) is official part of Android and offers everything needed.
Emulators suck, better developed on a device.
And the world gets with AOSP the Android code in return enabling all kind of mods rather then some binary use-only blob with DRM and NSA inside (Hello nsadll.dll). Good deal.
Oh the joy of writing JNI wrappers!
Which cannot be installed in any device on sale at consumer stores and lacks the Google proprietary services used by the majority of apps.
Additionally, indy tools (from xda, for rooting etc.) are too often available only for windows…
If you touch Eclipse you have only yourself to blame.
Android Studio, I don’t know – haven’t dared to try.
Plain IntelliJ – not the one branded Android Studio – does Android pretty well though.
No other IDE provides the GUI tooling and debugging tools that VS has.
Still playing catching up with Eclipse/ADT.
– No NDK support
– Graddle integration takes too much resources and breaks with each Studio release (as acknowledged at Google IO 2014)
As usual that depends on the context in which the IDE is being used. Visual Studio is a fantastic tool to make Windows executables. However, there is a hell of a lot more to the CS field than just Windows executables, something which comes as a bit of a shock for some Windows fans.
Uh? Android studio supports the NDK just fine. At least with the new Android build system.
Yeah, and Visual Studio is also a resource hog. No idea what you’re trying to get at with that last issue you brought, almost every single modern IDE is pretty heavy on computing resources.
Sure, but it doesn’t take the merit that other IDEs aren’t that good in those areas.
The only thing VS fails short is re-factoring tools.
No IDE support for editing, code navigation, static analysis, debugging.
Google is waiting for JetBrains to be done with their C++ IDE. Good work, really!
I don’t like Eclipse, but this transition to InteliJ looks like the “we are bored lets do everything again” that I see so much in Fortune 500 companies that don’t know what to do with their budgets.
In some cases where Google still did not fix and acknowledged at Google IO, Android Studio/Graddle jump to 100% usage on all cores rendering the computer unusable during builds.
Indeed, but then again others are better than Visual Studio in those areas as well. When it comes to IDEs there simply is no golden standard, they all have their pros and cons, some have more cons than others.
We also need to take into account we’re comparing a multi thousand $$$ product vs. free solutions. So yeah for some things VS is a more polished product, but then again it better be 😉
VS is really half assed in a ton of stuff; even things where it has an edge, like Edit&Continue, they’re implemented poorly. Heck, technically the VS C compilers just entered the XXI century as of a couple of years ago (their back end specially), and they still lag behind C++ standards implementation significantly. Support for 3rd party versioning systems is either poor or non existent, portability… what’s that? etc, etc.
Again, VS is a very competent IDE when it comes to build Windows executables and use Microsoft’s technologies. But it’s basically useless for almost anything else.
To be fair the latest revision of Android Studio does offer some degree of editing/navigation. Debugging with the NDK is still a very unpolished experience in Android land, but then again at least Android has an NDK…
Well, they’re the ones developing Android Studio so…
Yeah, and in some cases incremental builds in VS will also bring down a 12-core Xeon workstation with 16GB of RAM. Again, I don’t know what your point here is being since pretty much all modern/large IDEs are resource hogs.
Like IDEs produced by Apple, Oracle, HP, IBM, …
Of course OS vendors only target their own OS.
Edited 2014-08-17 21:03 UTC
Funny thing, Oracle’s Netbeans runs and targets Solaris, Linux, Windows, and OSX. And there is IBM’s VisualAge which ran and targeted a boatload of systems/OSs before it became Eclipse.
If one has to develop for the Microsoft ecosystem it makes plenty of sense to use VS, since it’s probably the best tool for that context. In any case, the point still stands; consumers don’t give a shit about the behind the scenes technical details like the IDE used to develop for their shiny new smart phone. Thus bringing VS as it being somehow a value proposition, for potential customers, of Windows Phone makes no sense.
Quite a few C and C++ plugins, and Java JIT performance analyzers are Solaris only.
Which Visual Age version and language? Visual Age was a marketing term for all IBM IDEs.
I surely remember the ones that only targeted OS/2 and mainframe systems properly.
Edited 2014-08-18 08:41 UTC
Oh noes, a couple of Solaris specific features are only supported on Solaris! In any case, the point still stands Oracle’s IDE supports and targets: Solaris, Linux, OSX, and Windows. Something which VS can’t do. To be fair VS does things that no other IDE can, like support the full gamut of the Microsoft stack, in Windows land.
VisualAge at one point or another has supported among others: OS/2, Windows, Linux, OSX, as well as a bunch of IBM proprietary big iron OSs (AIX, iOS, z/XXX, and TPF). In the same vein, Eclipse now supports a boat load of systems and environments. I don’t particularly like Eclipse FWIW, but it does things few other IDEs can.
Again, I must reiterate the development environment does not seem to be a value proposition that has much of a priority among the common smartphone target consumer.
You must be Nelson?
I wish Jolla could expand and get more attention / attract more users. But the threats of patent attacks (from the likes of LCD trolls or simply MS + Apple) prevent them from even trying to enter many markets.
The lack of competition is clearly boosted by the crooked patent system.
Edited 2014-08-15 16:06 UTC
Main reason why Jolla isnt entering US market (while constantly expanding in European and Asian market) is the fact it’d get slaughtered by patent trolls the moment first shipment of jollas landed in states.
Jolla, as it is, doesn’t have the money to fight them off, so entering US market would be death of it.
If you think patents are main obstacle to Jolla…
ZX Spectrum vs Commodore 64
Amiga vs Atari ST
PC vs Mac
Nintendo vs Megadrive
… (fill your favourite two horses)
All the other ones tend to be distant third, fourth, fifth … places
I plan to get a WP, anyway.
What?! Atari 8bit vs Commodore 64!
I don’t think there is much to excuse this, its a terrible showing by Microsoft. I was naive to think that this transition would go off without having a sales impact.
Then again, I’m not sure I anticipated the regulatory approval dragging on for as long as it did. It is what it is though.
So sales are flat to negative YoY and QoQ. Definitely bad. Also shows that Nokia was growing its volume despite Microsoft, not because of it. Its understated just how much effort they put into the platform. It showed.
Microsoft with many times over the resources hasn’t done anything nearly as impressive. Nokia for al its management faults, did execute really well on their strategy.
Now, looking forward. Where does WIndows Phone stand? Will it be killed? Are the vultures circling the dead carcass? Is this mythical angry shareholder strawman going to take your live tiles away?
No. Microsoft wont kill Windows Phone because the platform brings numerous intangible benefits. In my opinion, Satya can understand and appreciate that.
We have some positive catalysts for 2014 like the 15+ OEMs which signed up after Microsoft eliminated licensing fees and opened up hardware specs.
There’s also Nokia’s product pipeline that will be ramping up towards Q3/Q4 to watch out for. Including the Lumia 530 which seems to be pushing prices even further downwards than the 520. I’ve seen the devices from the regional OEMs and their low end devices seemed price in that range as well.
Will it lead to a sales rebound? Well, it can’t really get worse without turning into a complete disaster — so in my opinion yes. Will it be dramatic enough to silence the critics/cynics here? Probably not.
I do think its cute when people try to distill complicated product strategy down to a simple P/L statement. Microsoft has retarded amounts of cash, the suggestion that Microsoft might drop the platform is more OSNews red meat than anything.
WP might be firmly entrenched around low end category.
It surely delivers best in that niche (if 60% of sold devices can be considered a niche).
Why does it have to be a bad thing?
MS surely will not be able to profit the OS licenses this way but the times has changed and new revenue models provide enough recap.
That would be embarrassing; to spend all that money to replace an OS that you already had (Symbian) on the low end…
At least WP is a better OS…
Or maybe this is Microsoft’s “OS/2 moment”? Maybe there’s enough place only for 2 big/biggish players…
I don’t really put much stock in unwritten rules like that, I also don’t think that Android is a single “thing” but rather a loose coalition of many competing vendors.
So there isn’t just one, or two big “fish”. There are many little fishes, each bringing a unique perspective. For example, I actually tried an LG G3 the other day. The buttons on the back were actually pretty cool in my opinion.
It’s that experimentation that Android enables that has advanced the state of the art. iPhones on the other hand are more locked down. That’s also fine and has also done a lot for how people think of a smartphone today.
There is a role for both, and even a middle ground option like Windows Phone which tries to be empowering to OEMs while balancing the need for a consistent user experience.
The key takeaway though is that the various business models allow for different approaches. Each with pros and cons.
Google profits immensely from a ubiquitous stage on which to present their services. Chrome for example has profited immensely from the prevalence of Android.
But Google’s advertising centric business model is complimented by this strategy well.
Apple makes ridiculous bank off of their hardware sales, they also tightly control the software and provide for an extremely consistent and refined experience.
Where does Microsoft fit? Why do they do Windows Phone? Let’s put Satya aside for a moment, and try to think about what rationale Ballmer might’ve presented for keeping WP around.
I think Windows Phone gives them experience in doing large scale application stores, optimizing their OS for smaller and smaller form factors and power envelopes, scaling their development platform to make it easy to write for many different screens, etc.
Windows Phone informs a lot of their approach in general towards mobile computing. So that yeah, maybe they didn’t catch the cell phone wave in time to be a market leader. Maybe they’ll never get there.
They will be ready for the next wave, whatever it is because of their refining and learning from their experience with Windows Phone.
You can plug in Surface there too if you’re looking for justification.
I mean, look, Microsoft has a ton of money. Really, it’d be more wasteful for them not to sink money into refining the process. They’d pay more in the long run by lacking the competencies required to even keep up in today’s market.
An example I often cite is Bing (a notorious money hole) being the incubator for Windows Azure, has an ARR of $4B.
Edited 2014-08-19 00:25 UTC
“ARR”? :p And I don’t know, I still see too many parallels with OS/2…