Over at Daringfireball this past weekend, John Gruber put words to what many people are thinking about after Google’s rush of Android announcements and not-subtle Apple-bashing at this week’s I/O conference: “all-out war.” I agree with Gruber that a good old-fashioned bitter rivalry could be a great thing for the computing world, and for smartphone/handheld fans in particular.In the meantime, Michael Arrington is having a brief flirtation with a $25 prepaid phone, but that fling is only enabled by the existence of the iPad for routine mobile computing needs and some unrequited lust for an as-yet-unreleased smartphone. The smartphone isn’t going away. It’s just going to be a part of an ever-richer market segment.
Right before our eyes, the computing world is being re-oriented, with some former heavyweights being relegated to support players, upstarts rising to prominence, and former champions taking a shot at a comeback. There’s a magical combination of technologies and trends that are enabling this transformation, and the various players’ strengths and skills at taking advantage of these factors will ultimately determine both their fortunes and the nature of the computing world that we’ll all have to live in for the next twenty years. Whether you’re a take-sides partisan or a curious onlooker, I think that 2009-2011 will prove to be a critical turning point in technological history.
In Thom’s thought-provoking essay from one week ago, he delivered a heartfelt elegy for the platform wars that haven’t so much ended but rather burned themselves out, while recognizing that cloud and mobile computing seem to be where the real action is these days. I agree with him, and don’t necessarily lament the loss.
As Gruber points out, one of the major differences between Google’s devices and Apple’s is that Google’s are more at-home in a post-PC world, while Apple’s are — literally — tethered to an accessory personal computer, if only for the initial setup and major upgrades. The cornerstone of the Post-PC world is offloading much of what we used to do with client apps onto centrally-managed server apps, i.e. cloud computing. Advancements in the HTML spec, robust development frameworks for developers, and the ongoing plummeting of the cost of processors, bandwidth, and memory for servers have all made this revolution possible, and most people who work in the web apps space feel that we’re just at the forward edge of what’s possible.
The new crop of devices, from netbooks to smartphones to the new tablets would be much-degraded without cloud computing. It’s all about the strong collection of web-enabled apps that both ameliorate their modest performance and storage capabilities and extend their functionality via an always-on network. As this revolution continues, fewer people will be using these devices as an accessory to a traditional personal computer, and more will be using them as replacements.
But clearly, in the Google vs. Apple smartphone (and soon-to-be, certainly tablet) wars, the big loser almost certainly is going to be has already been Microsoft. Not only can I not imagine them being able to make up for their lost momentum enough to be more than a side player, there just aren’t many people who are really rooting for them to win. And there’s another problem for them: this computing revolution isn’t only about a bunch of nifty new mobile computing devices getting everybody’s attention.
There are various things happening simultaneously here, and the interaction between these phenomena is what’s causing the revolution: First is a vibrant and exciting new crop of devices, running the gamut of price and functionality: Desktop PCs, laptops, netbooks, smartbooks, tablets, smartphones. A by-product of the various hardware platforms is a variety of different operating systems, each with its own advantages, limitations, and application library. But instead of taking us back to the bad old days of vendor lock-in via software apps, native applications are waning in importance. Some platforms, such as Google Chrome, are trying to dispense with native apps altogether. The iPhone’s apps are typically lightweight affairs that are often just a series of UI hooks to a web-based app. Even regular desktop PCs are experiencing the shift. I probably use a quarter of the apps on my desktop machines that I used to, and even some of the ones I use are just gateways to “cloud” apps. Everything else has been replaced by web apps.
In theory, this should make the barrier to entry for a new platform pretty low. As long as you really embrace web-based apps, people should be able to do the things they want to do, and the lack of a large developer community won’t hurt you as much as it used to. In the irony to end all ironies, this may actually save Microsoft from becoming completely irrelevant in mobile computing. In practice however, apps still matter, and that’s one reason why this war seems to be organizing itself around Apple’s vibrant, orderly, and deeply unfair App Store model and Google’s evolving concept for an app store, which now appears to include both native android apps and a “store” for web apps. (Of course, Microsoft’s still massive library of win32 apps will still remain relevant in the desktop space, but their window for being able to leverage that advantage into mobile is largely closed.)
The vibrancy and simplicity of these new devices, coupled with the increasing viability of a completely cloud-based desktop computing environment is even causing people to question the PC paradigm altogether. I believe that over the next few years we’ll actually see a contraction of the personal computer installed base in countries with a fully-developed tech economy. Already, two and three-computer families are becoming one computer, two iPad households. They may be outliers now, but with the convenience and maintenance advantages of Post-PC devices, once the iPad is joined by scads of inexpensive lookalikes, we’ll see more and more older PCs being decommissioned and replaced with alternative devices.
I think it’s safe to speculate that many of these devices won’t be tablets. Lightweight non-Windows netbooks, and even full laptops and desktops will become more popular, particularly if Google’s Android and ChromeOS and (Now)HP’s WebOS make the advancements we assume they’ll make. Is an iPhoneOS-based MacBook (with a detachable keyboard) out of the question?
The upshot of all of this activity for the OSNews reader is a real invigoration of the OS landscape. Granted, for the most part we’re still talking about Windows, MacOS, and Linux and their associated variants, but it’s exciting nonetheless. The only way this is really going to happen, however, is through a knock-down, drag out war.
As ambitious as Apple has seemed to be as it’s made its assault on the smartphone space, it is not, by nature, an ambitious company, strategically. They have existed from the beginning by creating (mostly) excellent products that a portion of the tech community wants to buy, and has always maintained that it’s necessary to both keep their product line pretty constrained and their prices pretty high. But pleasing everyone and selling to the mass market has never been their thing. The iPhone enjoyed such a superiority to the field for its first couple of years, that if Google had not intervened, it’s quite likely that Apple would have rested on its laurels and differentiated new iPhones mostly around industrial design. Staying a step ahead of Microsoft would have been a background process.
But Google is going to force Apple to up its game considerably, and the fact that Android is free to license means that the entirety of the non-Apple hardware world is likely to get involved. This also means that Microsoft, Nokia, HP, Samsung, and whoever else wants to make a platform play is going to have to work that much harder. They’re not going to just have to contend with Apple and its natural boundaries. They’re going to have to try to make money in an environment where neither Apple nor any of the Android users is paying a licensing fee for their software. The only way they’ll be able to compete in that environment is by innovating: either making a platform that beats out the leaders in some way, or expanding a new product segment where Android and Apple aren’t doing a good job.
So will we end up with a boring old Apple/Google duopoly? I think it’s too early to call that yet. Most of the money to be made in the post-PC space is in the future, growing, parts of it, and I think the prize is just too glittering for Microsoft and the rest of the players to just give it up so early in the game. It’s going to be war, ladies and gentlemen, and the beneficiaries will be us.
I agree Microsoft looks like it’s in a bad position now. It would be interesting to see them create their hardware and become a little more Apple like, but they lack the experience and probably lack important patents. They’ve got a lot of great technology though. If they can get pointed in the right direction I’m sure they could have an impact.
I wonder if it’s still a little early for the cloud computing revolution. Chrome seems a little ahead of it’s time yet. Have both Android and Chrome is confusing to customers. It doesn’t seem like Google really has a plan in mind. I do like some of Android’s cloud features, but some of Google’s privacy issues question whether I really want all my data on their servers.
Who knows that Apple’s plan is for cloud computing, but they seem to be in a good position to transition their product line in that direction if/when they need to. For now, the App model seems to be most popular and I imagine it will be for quite a while. I can’t see personal computers disappearing from households in the next few years either, so their current syncing system doesn’t seem like a big problem.
I don’t think this new computing world is going to be conducive to a monopoly as we’ve had with Microsoft the past umpteen years. I don’t think Apple is aiming to crush all competition. They can survive quite well with a piece of the pie. Google’s all out war attitude reminds me more of Microsoft, but Google’s strategy probably depends on them having a large market share. Still, their all out war attitude against Apple doesn’t seem to make much sense. I think there is more than enough room for both.
A lot of these applications are accessible so many different ways. Simplenote for example, I use their web app on the iPhone, two different apps on the Mac, and their web site on the PC. Flickr, twitter and other services are the same. Data floats between machines with much more ease it’s going to be hard for one company to kick all the others out.
Despite what some would have you believe there is two way sync’ing of key data for those who subscribe to .Me services. I think this is something they will expand with future versions of the OS, and as mobile data speeds, reliability and data limits improve. Something they’ve always tried to be mindful of is pushing emerging technologies beyond their current useful limits – a lesson some others need to learn too.
When it comes to apps, again despite the spin some like to put on it there is a simple way of sharing apps with up to 100 other people without having to use the App store (http://developer.apple.com/programs/iphone/distribute.html), so even small companies can have custom apps written for internal use or individuals can write apps to share with their friends without having to go through the app store approval process – something that seems to be conveniently overlooked during discussions on the topic. While they are somewhat draconian and inconsistent with their rules the model is working relatively well and gives enough flexibility to satisfy their target audience, which is really all they’re interested in. Google’s model is also a good one, whether it’s seen as such long term by the larger developers remains to be seen.
As for the future, I think Google is actually the one in the box seat. They own the data market, and data, information, has always been king. They can advertise their own products free of charge across a wide variety of generic web services, something that would cost their competition millions – millions that in turn would go into Google’s pockets – so as more services become web based their position gets ever stronger. Whether they have the balls to control the market to the extent they must in order to consistently deliver a good user experience for tangible products remains to be seen.
I think they’re a little like teenagers at the moment, trying to impress everyone so that they have lots of “friends” on their Facebook page. Unfortunately that usually creates “fine weather friends”, and they may just have to tread on the toes of some of those friends if they want to be a long term player in markets that deal with something tangible. They certainly have some fantastic technologies available to them how they use them going forward will be interesting.
As for Microsoft, well who knows. They have this habit of coming out with something just at the right time. They still have some very good technologies under their belt, they just seem too slow off the mark to be considered relevant at the moment. But that can change in a heartbeat.
If I were a betting person though I’d be putting my money on a Google dominated future with all the others making up the rest of the landscape.
How much is Apple paying for advocacy?
Grow up.
What? YOU are growing up and decided to announce that to all of OSNews? Congrats for you … now get out of that basement …
I think the part about MS was a bit of wishful thinking:
But clearly, in the Google vs. Apple smartphone (and soon-to-be, certainly tablet) wars, the big loser almost certainly is going to be has already been Microsoft. Not only can I not imagine them being able to make up for their lost momentum enough to be more than a side player, there just aren’t many people who are really rooting for them to win.
To begin with most people don’t buy phones to root for companies. They buy them for features.
I wouldn’t discount MS when Zune HD is pretty slick and makes use of their xbox live service for movie rentals and music. A lot of business users will buy Wp7 just for portable MS office.
But the real problem is that there is really no compelling reason to get an Android. Android games suck compared to the iphone and lot of people are going with Google simply because they don’t want to switch to AT&T. Google has gained ground due to a lack of competition.
Google has also made a mistake by fragmenting their own market. Google is hyping 2.2 but there are devices that are currently shipping with 1.5. They also have been too loose with hardware specs. Carriers can build basically any type of device with any Android version which causes headaches for developers.
I wanted to see Google put some pressure on Apple but so far I have been disappointed. People aren’t leaving the iPhone for droid. Google is mainly picking up Verizon customers and people that don’t care about having a bazillion apps.
Google approach is the anti-apple, and it makes sense… if you try to be like your competitor, you lose if that competitor is established and is large enough. And apple is indeed the 800lb gorilla in the US smart phone market.
Google doesn’t want the US market, if they can beat Apple in the rest of the markets. And other markets favor the diverse-yet-from-the-same-source approach of google. Which was similar to what MS did for the desktop over 2 decades ago. MS wasn’t concerned on the HW as much as they were in making sure PCs with all sorts of configurations, sizes, and speeds… were running a copy of a Microsoft OS.
Google’s model was to give the OS for free, something MS is not capable of doing, since Microsoft’s culture simply doesn’t allow/support it. Google makes the money in the cloud, which where their traditional revenue comes from. So in a sense they beat MS at their own game, in the mobile space… which was probably their initial goal. Apple’s vertically integrated approach is simply not as scalable. But Apple’s culture is more focused on profit margins than in massive user bases.
So chances are there will be two established players in the mobile space: Apple for the boutique/upper scale customers. And Android for everyone else. The rest of the world cares first about price, and they have no problem putting up with the annoyances that American customers may feel insufferable. So Android does not look as polished, and using it doesn;t make you shit rainbows…. but the rest of the world doesn’t care that much. It is after all a phone, and their purchasing power is smaller, so they have other things to worry their minds with.
Apple will make their revenue from apps and media content they can distribute and control. Whereas google will probably get money the way they always do: via advertisement. I wonder what players which depend on content revenue, like amazon, will pan out on this scenario. And probably Microsoft will be squeezed out of this market, since they are too late and can’t really compete unless they really get traction with their mobile office as their main value proposition (since the missed the boat on content delivery, and/or advertisement revenue). It would be interesting seeing MS being so tied to the fate of the desktop they so dominated, in a karmik sort of way.
Edited 2010-05-25 08:58 UTC
Actually the rest of the world doesn’t care much about Android or Apple. The purchasing power is actually higher when it comes to mobile phones in Europe and Asia. They have more models, better plans and they can use whatever carrier they want with their mobile since they all use GSM. Mobile phones are throwable objects. People get bored really fast. That is why they change it every year.
Edited 2010-05-25 09:14 UTC
“Purchasing Power” and “Product/Market Choice” are two very different things. Also I am talking about the smart phone market, not the throwaway plain cell phone market. Two very different spaces in cost and user/carrier behavior.
Edited 2010-05-25 18:46 UTC
Not really. I have a 10$ phone that is smaller, faster, lighter and has more features than an iPhone. It is not advertised as a “smartphone”, firstly because it is too small for most apps, and secondly because being more powerful than an iPhone only makes it an average phone.
MS can charge 10 or 20 dollars for the OS and make additional revenue from content sales. If forced I think they would give their OS away then allow more market to go to Google or Apple. They had no problem taking a loss on the Xbox for years.
And if my grandma had balls I would have called her grandpa.
I am not talking about what Microsoft may do, I mean… technically they could make the bestest OS ever, give it for free, and include a week long vacation in a Tahitian resort. Sure that could happen, everything and anything could happen. But I am referring to stuff based on reality.
It is about what they have done and are doing. Which is why I referred to their cultural inability to do “Free.” Even when the XBOX was sold at a loss, they never gave anything for free. The closest they have gotten to giving anything for free is the MSDN freebies for students. And even then it took them forever to get their act together in that regard.
Microsoft’s model has always been about licenses first and foremost. They can’t cope too well with different models, i.e. the Zune is still a distant second fiddle to iTunes.
Microsoft missed the boat big time with the mobile space. Once OEMs have Android for free, MS has to try very hard to justify enough of a value proposition to force them to push more expensive products due to the licensing overhead of windows mobile.
The ironic thing is that Windows mobile has been in the market for eons longer than almost any other phone OS out there today (esp. Android and iPhone OS). I think the problem is that MS never understood that OS licensing is a no go in such a cost conscious space as the mobile device one… when there are free alternatives which are as good (android), or vertically integrated alternatives with a much better user experience (iPhone OS + iTunes + App Store). Microsoft probably thought the same model that brought them dominance in the desktop would work in the phone market. However, without the same massive user base and market inertia… they are forced to compete in a level playing field, and there is where their weakness becomes too obvious.
But then again, I am not in charge of a multi billion dollar company. So who knows, maybe the new Windows Phone or whatever it is called may actually manage to get some traction.
Yea and I think that culture has changed. They are currently giving away a standalone hyper-v server that works with Linux guests. That’s a huge difference from 10 years ago.
With the Xbox they have shown that they can give away the core system while making money on software sales. The Zune hasn’t been much of a competitor to ipods but it has good software which they will be able to utilize in wp7. Zune HD is a good product but they priced it too high. A Zune phone will be a much easier sell.
They are certainly late to the party but there is plenty of room for competition. I doubt they would charge more than $20 for the OS which is nothing given how much smartphones are subsidized by carriers.
“… Apple’s culture is more focused on profit margins than in massive user bases.â€
That was true before Jobs came back to Apple. He explicitly criticized the “obscene†1995-timeframe profit margins on the Mac in a 2004 interview, when the Mac finally faced decent competition with Win95.
There’s every indication that Apple is in this fight to take home a majority share of smartphone users. All of its attention is focused on the Android alliance as its only real competitor.
Your insight was true… a decade ago. Today, not at all.
I suggest, you check on the actual sales numbers and the actual profit margins for each apple product.
Yeah, but as true to Jobs, he’s nothing but a POS. As it stands, you are lucky to believe one word of ten out of his mouth.
Err… No. Really, no. 650€ is the price of an high-end fridge, that is a rather long-lived device where exigences about user safety and hygiene are quite high. Are you really telling me that a bunch of common electronic components (each only guaranteed to last one year and costing a few cents, expect the processor, the screen, and the battery which cost maybe 20 dollars each to make), put together using CMS soldering techniques (add up one dollar), and packed in a shiny box with 4 buttons, costs, say, a third of that ? And that the rest goes into salaries ?
Margins are still insane in the Apple world. Especially since they rely on carriers to sell their device at a normal price together with a Midas-priced plan, and don’t sell any kind of lower-end device to accommodate the need of most people who don’t need the third of what an iPhone could possibly do.
And they will lose just like when they faced Microsoft, by forgetting why the MacBook currently sells so well among students while iBook sells where nonexistent at best…
Edited 2010-05-25 21:19 UTC
Kinda funny how much this contrasts to your article of a few weeks ago about how there wasn’t any os news going on. Excited to see what happens, and as one of the few rooting for Microsoft, i can’t wait for wp7.
I think he was saying there was not much OS news on the PC front so things like smartphones are covered now becasue that is where the action is.
I don’t see a contradiction.
As a .NET developer im rooting for WP7. One thing Microsoft is good at is having kick-ass development tools.
Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone is already out (http://www.microsoft.com/express/Phone/). This contains a device emulator and a really solid integrated environment. It is free as with other Express editions. Not sure about App Store access though but im sure we will learn more as the devices come out.
Yeah, competition is great, it keeps the tech companies on their feet, so let’s have some more of it. I am sort of liking it, except…
I wouldn’t feel so certain that the socalled ‘cloud’ computing would amount to much in the end. If, for instance Chrome OS wouldn’t allow people to run native apps, then it’s doomed to fail, at least on something like netbooks.
Or rather, I hope it is. You never know when the general public are going to embrace something completely stupid. Especially when Google Made It
But I am certainly never jumping on this particular bandwagon.
In the interest of not just sounding like an angry old man, ranting about ‘kids nowadays’, I should probably argue the point.
Computers are today still becoming smaller, more powerful and more energy-efficient. Likewise, our Internet connections are becoming increasingly fatter and faster. In that case, what is the point of moving applications and data to company-owned servers, at companies that don’t necessarily have your best interests at heart?
What can they do that you couldn’t handle or make accessible from your own connection in the future?
“Wow! With social networking, people have started voluntarily relinquishing their personal info to us! Let’s extend this to their data as well and call it ‘the cloud’. Brilliant!”
I know this may seem slightly paranoid to some, but I just don’t believe that’s a very tenable situation to be in. At least not when you’re receiving the service for free, and the revenue of the company is based on ads. Now, if you are actually paying for a service, it might be slightly different, as they are relying directly on you for their revenue. But we all know that pay-for isn’t going to extend the cloud fluff to the general public.
And what would happen if the company went bankrupt? – “Oh noes! People have found out that AdBlock exists! The ad revenue is dropping like a stone!”
Oops. Where did all the data just go?
And what would be the point of a ChromeOS machine with only online google apps, as opposed to say, some Linux machine with native apps + google apps?
It certain wont make sense on netbooks. Even doing it extensively on mobile phones doesn’t really make that much sense.
But true. It wouldn’t be the first time I have overestimated the common sense of the general public
The author completely ignores what has been going on in the mobile market for years and just focus on the new trendy “technology” from Apple and Google.
Please don’t take offense but I suppose the guy is american and think smartphones are something new created by Apple and extended by Google.
Mobile technology is not about Android and the iPad or trendy flashy gadgets. This may be what technology is about in California. But if you want to see the global picture, don’t ignore the elephants in the room.
Up until now, Google and Apple have been playing catchup with the mobile industry. HP just entered the market with WebOS. If you want to see where the mobile industry is heading, you should look at the industry leaders first.
Edited 2010-05-25 08:56 UTC
The market leaders are experts at the present, not the future. The market leaders are struggling with profitability and direction. They’ve been resting on their laurels. Nokia, Motorola and RIM have been pushing too many models with no drive for simplicity and dethroning the carriers.
Why is it it took Apple — who never made a mobile phone before — to dethrone AT&T’s iron-like grip over handset design? Shouldn’t that be the role of the market leader? No, they’re just as bad as AT&T.
We could be entering an era where the entire computer industry changes hands and the market gets flipped up side down. This is normal and happens over and over again in smaller markets, but never at this scale.
* Could Intel eventually be dethroned by the ARM architecture?
* Could Apple destroy RIM? Could Android destroy the iPhone?
* Could WebM take the lead over H.264?
* Could Windows finally be obsoleted?
Exciting times.
You are just speculating on the future of the mobile industry. Nobody know what the future is.
Currently, smartphones are like cars: a social recognition object. People buy it to look cool. In some spheres,taking pictures at 12MP is pretty cool, in other spheres, pinching is damn cool. Some people think they are cool with the Prada logo on their phone. Some other people like to show their big screen. That’s about 20% of the people. The rest buy rock solid small phones that fit in their pocket with weeks of battery life for less than €/£/$1
The people who buy cool phones get bored really fast. They change it every year or every 6 months. Android and Apple are the trend currently in California. They are not trendy everywhere. The rest of the world doesn’t care about AT&T iron grip at all. Go to a phone shop in Europe or in Asia and look at the models. The iPhone is one model at the back of the store between the N97 mini and the Samsung Galaxy, there are 1 or 2 Android phones and hundreds of other phones with designs and features that fit different people taste. People even buy throwable mobile phones in supermarkets.
Edited 2010-05-25 10:15 UTC
I did, and it was depressing. It was like a pack of designers had been let loose to do whatever they wanted in desperation; and when they fail they all get killed and a new set are bought in. No coherence, no direction.
The one model getting all the attention.
The competition are floundering. The iPhone’s high price and locked nature is its Achilles heel.
Android is succeeding because it offers essentially the same as the iPhone but with the flexibility European consumers want.
It’s your opinion because in your sphere Pinching is cool. Many other people are perfectly happy with their N900/N97, Samsung Galaxy, Xperia or whatever. Actually only 2.5% of the people choose the iPhone.
If Nokia would hurry up and ship the N900 to Canada with a reasonable price point, I’d be all kinds of happy. I’m all over wanting that chunk of hardware. That it has a phone radio now is only a bonus and the status symbol only works if people recognize the device. But, for what I want from a mobile device, the N900’s remains the clear upgrade path from my N810&phone combo.
There are certainly people that bought the iphone to look cool but most people buy them because they are useful. Small phones are great for battery life but they are lousy for browsing the web, entering contacts, playing games, etc. People are using smartphones as mini-computers. They’re using them in cases where they would normally use a laptop.
Windows obsolete? I think you guys are getting your hateful dreams a bit too far.
Windows is very much the primary desktop OS, and no, various open source desktop do not cut it.
Neither does OSX. Should I point out the abysmal 3D performance?
Windows 7 is actually mostly pleasant to use and works rather well – and it’s fast including gaming (I use all main OSes, as many do here i suppose)
I don’t need to point out how many businesses also rely on it and do not wanna switch their forests of active directories.
It’s not going away anytime soon. And certainly not by 2011..
My point was that all the interest, all the development and all the growth is heading to mobiles. It’s a hype bandwagon. Desktops will still be around and will still be getting the actual work done whilst people Facebook their tweets.
Apple seem already to have forgotten about the desktop.
Windows is already obsolete to me because I can use any OS and run the web pages I want to. This trend is only going to increase unless Microsoft can rejuvenate the platform.
Meaning, the trend for techie geeks. Not for business. Not for those that matter.
Microsoft will be around a LONG time, regardless of whether they “rejuvenate the platform.”
You make a fair point. For some people like me, things like endless flow of stupid popups, antiviruses, and bloated background services will be a bit too much, but for most people, Windows 7 is good enough facing the pain that one has to endure in order to switch away from it.
So who are the industry leaders? Right now the iPhone is the best selling “smartphone” in the world. Android is the best selling “smartphone” platform in US.
RIM is done, MS is done, Nokia is done. I am not seeing any other leaders out there but maybe I am missing one?
Wrong and wrong.
Wrong, right, wrong. Missing one? You are missing the whole world outside Apple and Android! You have your head in the sand.
Ok still waiting on which smartphone company or particular phone or platform is doing better then Apple and Google? RIM was #1 in smartphones and their sales are stagnate! So whats left?
Saying my head is in the sand besides sounding childish, does not show facts.
Apple has about 15% of the “smartphone” market and Android about 10%. That sums up to about 25%. You missed about 75% of the world. “Smartphones” are about 20% of the phone market so you actually missed about 95%. Please don’t take offense, I’m just noticing that the elephants are ignored once again.
The article was about computing and since that would imply smart phone, that is we were talking about. We are not talking about the other phones dumb or simi dumb like the Microsoft Kin.
Actually we are just talking about the iPhone and Android, like all the tech industry was revolving around Apple and Google.
Yeah they are the companies making the most moves, have the most momentum and are making the most money. All the things that companies and CEO’s die for.
More like “have the biggest marketing department and propaganda machine”. Read what you wrote again in light of that.
I’m sorry that we don’t feel like discussing disposable phones, but people here are interested in the cutting edge. We’re not interested in yesterday’s phones where the biggest feature was 0.5 more megapixels or colourful snap on plastic pieces.
When we talk about the iPhone, we are usually discussing the iPhone OS. The phone is just a giant screen. It’s all about the software. Android is an OS. This is OSnews. What did you expect?
I expected we talk about the big OSes out there. Those that matter and those that matter less, not only about the niche OS.
Android and iPhone OS aren’t exactly niche at this point.
Feel free to submit news articles about other operating systems and we’ll discuss them.
Depends on how you define a niche. What I mean to say is that they are small when compared to the elephants in the room and yet they get all the attention while the others get ignored. Conclusion are drawn on the future of the mobile industry based on their development alone, which is an heresy.
I think that I finally get where you are coming from. You are a Nokia fan and you want to see Nokia’s work acknowledged. You are bitter that Android and iPhone OS are stealing the limelight.
Wrong, wrong and wrong. You got it all wrong. I don’t know what makes you think that, but it’s just not true. I mentioned Apple 4 times, Android 4 times, Nokia 3 times, Samsung 3 times and LG once. Not only is that all wrong, it’s useless and inappropriate ad hominem.
Edited 2010-05-26 14:51 UTC
That’s the way you’re coming across.
No. Wrong again. That’s just the way you see me from your reality distortion field. Ad hominems don’t change facts, sorry.
Edited 2010-05-27 05:30 UTC
Nokia is definitely on a downward slide and they know it. If not for their history, they’d be the smallest of the niche players. Warm and fuzzy won’t work much longer. People want phones that work well. It’s obvious that LG and Samsung are chipping away at Nokia on the bottom end and Android and iPhone at the top end.
LG is actually the leader in “smartphones” (flashy stuff with short battery life). It has constantly been selling more “smartphones” than Nokia for years. Nokia isn’t going under because Nokia phones is not their core business and they sell more “dumb” phones anyway (those with long battery life that people buy more). They are selling the core technology. They make the network to support the phones and the OS. LG and Samsung add their layer on top of Symbian. Bada looks interesting. I believe the future is all about QT though. Nokia emerged as the leader of the phone industry because they were the first to get that phones are to be sexy, then all followed.
Before anybody come and bash Symbian, let me just tell them they don’t know what they are talking about.
The recent numbers in devices dont actually hold true to what you are saying.
They have been sliding but have recovered. With the new Symbian^3 and later Symbian^4 I think they can better compete with iPhone (what is the latest innovation from cupertino? Video calling?! Thats not innovation.)
Dont forget MeeGo, in the long run this is where Nokia is going.
Using a horde of fans as marketing team. The iPhone lagging behind at pretty much everything doesn’t matter much. Grabbing 2% of the market is such a small time frame is a great success. Their marketing strategy is working better than their bigger competitors. Their brand is recognized by their fans since the Apple II as a synonym to innovation and forward thinking. They have many ties with the media industry to help them maintain their status. The N8, Symbian^3 and more importantly QT will be ignored by the media and yet be installed on more phones than all other platforms combined. On the other hand, iPhone OS 4.0 will be covered from left and right while still playing catchup with the phone industry.
Edited 2010-05-26 10:11 UTC
Right now the biggest barrier to the cloud computing future are the telcos. AT&T charges a lot, but can’t handle the traffic. Smartphones are neat, but the data plans are expensive. Oh, and you have to pay for a separate plan for each device. It’s good that Apple used its leverage to get more reasonable plans (and no contract) for the iPad, but if you want a data device for your laptop and a smartphone, you’ll pay through the nose – ditto for tethering. The telcos learned their lessons from landline service and DSL. They don’t want to be just a dumb pipe. So we have to endure exclusivity agreements and secondary services that are tied to a provider rather than truly open markets.
I’m glad that Android is moving along nicely (but Google still can’t do decent UI to save their lives). It is giving Apple some needed competition. I’m hoping it’s even better next year when I ditch my iPhone (mostly due to AT&T’s awful service).
I’m a little skeptical about cloud computing however. I’m glad that I can sync my iPhone with my Mac and it gets backed up via Time Machine. I’m glad that my data lives on my machine. Given their recent behavior, I’m not sure I trust Google with my information. Facebook hasn’t exactly been an upright citizen either. Mostly I’m concerned because I don’t pay Google, or Facebook’s bills. Advertisers and data miners do. I’d gladly pay for the services if it meant less intrusive advertising and the guarantee that my data and usage habits won’t be sold to other companies. I’d be even happier if (when?) I can set up my own small server and keep my own cloud that I can access anywhere.
Edited 2010-05-25 09:58 UTC
Apple’s vibrant, orderly, and deeply unfair App Store model
Who is the Apple app store deeply unfair to? Its competitors?
iPhone developers. Where have you been the past year of so?
Probably developers if anything. It seems a bit harsh to require Apple’s okay just to allow the app on the platform.
Yes, in the sense of being a deliberate barrier to competition (the artificial requirement that iProduct apps be developed only with Apple dev tools, etc). Unfair to developers, who have to jump through arbitrary hoops. And unfair to users… well, except for drooling lower-primates who are incapable of using a computing device without the Apple training wheels.
Eh? Is there any basis at all to make this claim? Who would throw out a perfectly good computer just because they have a 1ghz tablet? Three-computer, two-iPad, I could believe, but…
Amen.
No part of the original post more clearly proves the maxim, “in war, the first casualty is truth.â€
I’m a fan of strong competition and Google has made some incredible progress in making a *nix-based smartphone the mainstream approach. Incredible.
But the presentation was embarrassingly sophomoric, and deeply dishonest.
Google has claimed that they did the Android thing “to prevent one company, one man†from controlling the internet. Who, in 2005, when they bought Android, would that have been? Google has a clear and legitimate business purpose in increasing the ability of consumers to see their ads; why lie about it?
The speed comparisons were downright juvenile. Android seems to be a fine platform now that their Just-In-Time runtime takes away the sharp disadvantage they had faced with their current development tools. But the only real advantage over the iPhone 3GS is the clock speed of the chip in their most expensive phones. Earlier phones are now only up to competitive, and if Apple indeed announces their HD model in less than 2 weeks with a 1GHz chip, the crown will be Google’s for an embarrassingly short time. I didn’t see a direct lie, but the demo was deeply misleading, and I wouldn’t have wanted to have made it.
My biggest laugh, however, was their use of the “Linpack†benchmark to show how much faster they were. I actually have coded and use this “Gaussian elimination with partial pivoting†routine in my statistical investment programs, but I can’t imagine a *single* smartphone app that would have that routine in it. (I’d love to hear that advanced stat stuff is in use in cellphones, but can’t imagine how 0.01% of the population cares.) Linpack does math that’s *like* JPEG and MP3 manipulation, but decent performance on smartphones requires those routines to be very carefully hand-coded into the system or hardware. The Linpack benchmark doesn’t even address the stuff like it that *does* matter.
Again, Google has some neat directions and advantages but they show their immaturity and desperation by flouting irrelevant comparisons.
The IBM PC was originally used mainly as a peripheral to the mainframe.
But the point about Apple tethering is right on. And apple might make better mother-ships or rail-road engines, but the world is moving to individual speed-boats and auto (as in autonomous) mobiles.
Windows/MSFT the same way. They power the best motherships and their boats are designed to work with them.
Maybe you can leave the prison farm (Walled gardens don’t have barbed wire and guard towers) to the equally constrained dot-me prison farm, but that is not going to work.
Lightweight clients and cloud-based apps rock the house… but ONLY when you’re able to connect. When I want driving directions, movie times, restaurant reviews, when I want to connect to friends, log an update, get some info… I *need* that information.
But wander outside many major US cities (or into various canyons IN major cities), and you quickly lose your high-speed data coverage. Heck, in LOTS of places you still lose your VOICE coverage.
So, sorry… but the “Always Connected” model still breaks pretty quickly. We’re not going to be saying “bye bye” to our applications and big data files anytime soon for MUST HAVE uses.
So, similarly… counting Microsoft out would be a really, really, bad idea. Remember Windows Embedded? It’s a fully componentized version of Windows. I wonder how far away they are from a version that can be made sufficiently small and lightweight to run on a tablet? Then wouldn’t we have a “write once, run anywhere” version of Windows? Imagine every application that works on Windows being able to work on your tablet or phone… Yeah… that’s gonna have pretty broad appeal.
So, until the tablet/phone vendors solve the “only sometimes connected” problem for web-based apps… and those apps become so very key to people’s lives that the whole center of gravity shifts from the PC to the tablet/phone, Microsoft is still going to have a hold on us.
I’m not saying I like it… I’m just “calling ’em like I sees ’em.”
DD
“I wonder how far away they are from a version that can be made sufficiently small and lightweight to run on a tablet? Then wouldn’t we have a “write once, run anywhere” version of Windows? Imagine every application that works on Windows being able to work on your tablet or phone… Yeah… that’s gonna have pretty broad appeal.”
You can have that on a tablet right now. Just buy a Windows 7 tablet. However, I think that we’re finding out that people don’t want to use WIMP applications on their phones/tablets. They want a UI that’s optimised for the device.
Take Windows, trim it down, create a new UI layer that’s optimised for phones and tablets. What do you come up with? The equivalent of Apple’s OS X after they went through that same process to create iPhone OS. This is as close as you’re gonna get.
You say that Apple would rest on its laurels with the iPhone if not for Google. Personally, I think the iPhone that’s about to come out is the same iPhone that would have come out if Google had never even thought of entering the space. I base this on the iPod, which has no serious competition and which does continue to get useful new features over time.
I really think Apple has the “cannibalize yourself before someone else does” mentality that companies like IBM and Microsoft never had, which means not resting on your laurels.
Have a look at some of the things going on with HTML5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a46hJYtsP-8&NR=1
And think again how much the web matters and how it might impact the desktop.
I’m rooting for Microsoft. Now, I’m rooting for them to make a great product that’s profitable for them – if they’re not #1 that suits me fine. I’ve come to realize that I much prefer Microsoft when they’re behind as #2 or #3, and I’m a lot more appreciative of their products/services than when I was younger, so yes, rah-rah! Go number #3!
I agree only partly with the article. This “war” is not about the market leadership for devices, this is about being the gateway for providing content. Apple has been following a strategy of becoming the gateway for all your content and applications, for a while now. That is the reason for their tight control over the app store, they want to be main stop where you have to go for your applications. They tried again with the appleTV but failed and now with the ipad they are taking another stab at it. This is Apple’s “cloud” strategy. They want you to have to go through them if you want any content on your phone/pad/computer. They are leveraging their hardware to achieve this, and the web and html5 they are only using to gain further marketshare. They don’t want you to provide web-apps for the iphone, they want you to provide your content through native apps and this is already happening a lot, how many apps of major news sites you know that are nothing but glorified webpages and would be much better served by a well designed webpage?
For Google it is similar, Android is only a device which lets you access the cloud. It is primarily an “anti-iphone” device. They are trying to prevent apple to control how people access content, they don’t want apple to become the dominant player in the smartphone market, because apple wants to control what google is currently controlling, they essentially want to cut google out of the loop by making much of the web redundant.
The difference for the two players which also explains their different strategies, is that apple has to have their devices to become the major way we access the internet. Google on the other hand does not much care if you access the internet through android, or windows 7 … as long as you can freely access it. They are already the “gateway” to the internet, through their cloud services.
Aside from the obvious fact that we all have different requirements, taste, and budget, we are witnessing a clash of two philosophies.
One would have you believe that buying something doesn’t equate to owning the very thing that you bought. And furthermore threatens to send you to jail if you “lift the hood and tinker with the engine”, all the while making sure that you have no say, or choice on what you can use to add functionality (if you are allowed to do that at the first place). All this accompanied with a propaganda blitz about a supposedly great design (if you are a design freak then maybe you should look at P9522), a design which leaves me completely flat (I don’t even dislike the device just … flat, nada) and huge inovation.
The other is just trying to kill this model, by offering an alternative so that it can continue to be a relevant factor.
Reminds me of the MS vs Apple approach, with an added twist. Take a guess at which side I’ve picked
That sounds like a nightmare