“Market trends in Western Europe are not looking good for Apple’s iPhone. ‘Apple’s iOS continues to lose ground as market share declined to 20% from 25% in 1Q12 [first quarter 2012]’, IDC said Tuesday. Android, meanwhile, is gaining operating system market share, up 14 percent year-to-year in the first quarter. ‘Android continues to dominate the smartphone landscape’, according to IDC. In the quarter, Google’s OS shipped 21.9 million units and market share increased to 69 percent in the first quarter of 2013 from 55 percent in last years’ first quarter.” On top of that, Apple got knocked out of the top five in India, where it’s also bleeding market share. The America-centred large technology sites that dominate our reporting often fail to spot this huge problem for Apple: the company is only doing well in the US. It’s losing everywhere else. And just in case you don’t know: ‘everywhere else’ is 95% of the world, and that’s where future growth is to be found. The fact that Apple hasn’t addressed this yet is exactly why its shares aren’t doing stellar anymore.
Apple’s iOS still commands ~40% smartphone market share here in Australia. We may not be a large country only coming in at 22 million, or something like that, but it’s still something. Can’t say I am that happy about that
Edited 2013-06-26 13:31 UTC
The future growth is in your… hands.
It was 75% here a few years ago, so that makes me feel better about being Australian if your numbers are right
I work for a large digital agency in Australia. When we make an app for both platforms we see anywhere from 70-90% of users on iOS compared to android. And similar numbers for websites.
Which I personally am happy about as iOS is simply more fun to program for
My guess is that a large part of the reason is that iTunes sucks so badly. I have an iPhone. My contract is up in 3 months. Unless Apple pulls a rabbit out of their hat between now and then, I’m almost certainly going to switch to Android. My reason has nothing to do with the device or the OS or even the walled garden. Well, I guess the walled garden is partly why iTunes sucks as bad as it does.
The fly in the ointment is that I have a couple of apps on the iPhone that I really like. If there are no Android alternatives of equal quality, I might have to reconsider.
But, the point is that I think iTunes sucks so badly, it runs people off from the iPhone. It’s certainly driving me away.
Oddly, I’ve been an avid Linux user for about 13 years or more. I love Linux. But, I’ve never been real impressed with Android. I think it’s the java layer. So, when/if I do switch, I want to find a phone that I can load Ubuntu mobile on it. I have high hopes for Ubuntu on mobile devices.
Edited 2013-06-26 13:55 UTC
I am not sure what the “Java layer” has to do with it. Hardly noticeable to the naked eye. If you mean you find Android less than slick performance-wise perhaps you’ve only used older or lower spec phones. The Nexus 4 is fantastic.
The java interpreter slows Android down, which yea, makes the OS less smooth. I have seen the S4. So, I know that it’s better now that you can get a quad core in a phone. But, the fact that you need a quad core to make it smooth tells you a lot about the problem with Java.
Google used Java to abstract the user space from hardware so that Android would be more portable. They traded portability for smoothness.
I may not have this quite right, but, from what I understand, Ubuntu mostly solves this by promoting HTML5 and QT.
I wouldn’t put so much emphasis on the language/platform. Java execution is actually quite fast, problem usually lies in different things – poor drivers, different approach to multitasking, bad design choices etc. Android performance problems are not reducible to trivial “interpreted bytecode is slow”.
I have a hard time imagining that HTML5 + JavaScript will perform better than Java.
As others have said, it’s not a Java thing. And trust me… I am no fan of Java
Don’t compare Android specs to iOS, since iOS has about half the functionality that Android does, and its multitasking isn’t as good 
As long as you get the right phone and don’t download a bunch of crappy apps, performance on Android will be fine. I’d either get a Nexus 4, or wait til later his year and see if a new Nexus is released.
First of all how can you guarantee what is written in Java and what is written in C/C++? Unless you go read the code or navigate inside APKs, that is.
Second, although I would prefer a more C++ friendly environment, Android has a JIT since version 2.2 and it offers quite a nice performance.
It depends on a programmer. If he/she used complicated xml to design UI, then R.java will beat CPU without mercy. And the UI can be complicated, sometimes with writing xml code by hand. So it’s often fault of xml parser, which isn’t really it’s fault, because parsing text on the fly is always costly.
The problem is: R.java is so neat and everybody loves it. Image hardcoding UI in java for a moment.
Now you know why.
iPhone programmers are in better position, since they can hardcode UI to pixels. No worries about actual font, or bitmap size.
What?!
There is no parsing happening at runtime, R.java is generated at development time.
And I have no idea why I didn’t know that. Thanks.
So is there any xml parsing on the fly when running an app or not? I feel really confused now.
Edited 2013-06-27 16:48 UTC
I have an iPhone 4 that was provided by my work (3 years old now). I just recently bought my wife a Nexus 4.
It is truly amazing how the iPhone can still scroll content more smoothly than the quad core nexus. The only thing that the Nexus 4 manages to scroll completely without stutter is the home screen. Maps, web pages, and pdfs are all still a bit laggy/stuttery.
Also just got a Blackberry Z10 at work and it has the same problem. I don’t understand why no one can solve this smooth scrolling problem.
Also funny is that my wife’s shiny Nexus 4 sits gathering dust while she uses her iPod touch all day. The apps (reddit, email, iMessage) and games (Scrabble, draw something, fruit ninja) are just better on iOS, even though the iPod hardware is probably 10 times slower.
Edited 2013-06-27 15:31 UTC
A few clarifications – Android does not run Java. It executes DALVIK byte code. Java is used in development and compiled to DALVIK byte code. The Java VM is stack based, DALVIK is register based. Both can also use JIT compilation to speed execution. Lastly, Android apps can also have a significant portion of the app written natively via the Android NDK. This is native code executing at native speed.
The problem with Android is not the DALVIK VM layer, it is the multi-programming/memory model. In iOS, background apps are mostly frozen. On Android, everyone and his Mother has a service process running in the background. It doesn’t take long to clog up the phone’s memory. Sure, stuff is swapped out of memory, but the net effect is still occasional sluggishness (depending on the hardware specs). This is why T-Mobile sends out periodic alerts to all of its Android users when they have not restarted their phone after a certain amount of time.
It reminds me of the Palm vs. Windows CE. Palms apps were running one at a time (except for a few media apps or utilitites). It was the job of the app to remember its state when it came back (I wrote a couple Palm apps). CE apps were always clogging up memory, and I had to frequently either clear them out or restart the phone.
But that’s better right? Android has true multitasking.
Android doesn’t have true multitasking. It’s actually more a hybrid between the Palm and WinCE model (IIRC, Android will run n apps concurrently and kill apps that are older than n. It’s the job of the app to remember it’s state.
However Apps can also create services and such like, which can prevent it from being killed. Then you have widgets, custom launchers (et al) and a few other exceptions.
The maximum number of processes, and what happens to a process that is evicted from memory, is inconsequential to the question whether there is “true multitasking” or not.
Yes and no. When one discusses “true multitasking”, you don’t generally imagine an application cap. But I do take your point.
What I forgot to add -which does have a bigger impact on whether you’d class Android as “true multitasking”- is that applications are paused when they’re backgrounded unless they’re registered as a service (it’s actually a little more complicated than that, but it’s been a couple of years since I’ve written my last Android app so I need to revise the details myself).
As a whole, Android doesn’t do true multi-tasking in the sense that WinCE users were -and PC users are- acclimatised to. But it’s a damn good close compromise.
Edited 2013-06-26 21:14 UTC
It can run multiple third party process – yes.
It cannot properly multitask, unless we are talking about Samsung’s half baked implementation.
It runs Java the language, but not Java the implementatation.
Sometimes I wonder what Sun employees were smoking to give the same name to language and runtime.
Anyway, given the ongoing issues with Oracle, either it will be Java the language version 6 forever, or they need to migrate developers to something else. I am assuming no agreement will come out of it.
Just to continue in my picky ways, I don’t know what it means to say an operating system runs a language. For instance, I created a Basic Derivative called YeBasic for a class (used Archaic English terms for everything). I translated the YeBasic to C++ and then compiled the C++ to native executable. As long as there was a C++ compiler for a platform, I could compile my program for that platform (including my translator, which was written in C++ also). I wouldn’t say the platform “ran” my language Yebasic.
Thus, back to Android, any platform that can compile the DALVIK machine can run an android application. I don’t know what it takes to port DALVIK to you OS, but if it was ported to say, OpenBSD (not likely!), then I would say OpenBSD runs Android apps, not Java.
BTW, there is a Basic IDE for creating Android apps called Basic4Android. I assume it is translating the Basic code to Java, and then compiling the Java Code to DALVIK bytecode.
OK, that’s enough of me!
If iTunes sucks so badly, what are people using with Android that is so much better?
And why is the iTunes store the world’s number one music store?
Most complaints regarding the iOS-iTunes relationship are not about the purchasing experience, but the synching one. On Android, you just plug in a USB cord and ‘drag-n-drop’ whatever movies/music/docs, or just sync via Chrome on the desktop in the case of appointments and whatnot. There’s no Google Play desktop app that you need to launch in order to do this.
Yep. Plug the Samsung Galaxy Player or tablet into any computer and start swapping files. No special “i” software required, no restrictions, and no DRM.
Or almost as easy, copy any file from any computer onto a standard SD card and insert the card into the Galaxy Player. Try that on an iPod…
On Android, you just plug in a USB cord and ‘drag-n-drop’ whatever movies/music/docs
Same with iTunes. I don’t care where to drag-n-drop my files – Finder or iTunes window.
Edited 2013-06-27 09:15 UTC
Does that work on a non-OSX file manager?
Not sure about Windows, but it’s definitely not the case with my Linux or OpenBSD setups.
It might work on Windows file manager (Explorer or whatever it’s called) if you have iTunes installed on the system, but I’m talking about non-iTunes compatible operating systems here.
The fact that I can only sync and transfer media to my iPhone on the Mac in my office is annoying, especially when I’m at home.
Btw, even though I do have an iPhone and an OSX system, I still think iTunes is a bloated festering pile of santorum, so don’t use that lame “non OSX/iPhone user mantra” excuse. In my world, it’s perfectly acceptable to criticize the stuff you pay for.
Edited 2013-06-27 11:47 UTC
So people are actually using the term, hm
iTunes isn’t so bad. It’s mostly people who don’t use iTunes and iPhones who claim this. It’s a mantra thing.
My wife and I both use iPhones and we don’t synch to iTunes. Not that we dislike iTunes (I use it to play music all day), but there is no need to.
So… You don’t take pictures? Or live in 100% Apple environment.(which is more likely)
Try your average person – you don’t get photo syncing without iTunes.
Arguably, the average person (with 5 minutes of tutelage) will find synching their iPhone to iTunes to be dead simple. Jeez, the tribal wisdom on this board is ridiculous at times.
And they can figure out photo stream as I have, having pictures taken show up on my computers.
I’m glad it’s mostly people who don’t have iPhones or iTunes that have problems with iPhones or iTunes.
i’ve owned an ipod and was forced to use itunes
if i had to describe it in a few words i’d go for “piece of shit”
Edited 2013-06-27 20:18 UTC
How unfortunate that I do actually have an iPhone and still have issues with iTunes.
I never use iTunes. The common case is taking pictures on the iPhone and putting them on the computer. That works with drag-and-drop from the file manager, or iPhoto import. No iTunes required.
If you want photo synching (bi-directional), you need iTunes. Just like you need some third-party program to do the same on any other phone. But really this is somewhat antiquated. The future is cloud synching.
Edited 2013-06-27 15:30 UTC
I open my iCloud.com page and have yet to see pictures there.
Yes – the future is cloud syncing.
No – Apple is fully on that wagon.
Most people I know have moved away from managing MP3 files themselves. For MP3’s I buy (or rip from CD’s), I have them in my Amazon cloud, and can play them from my phone (or tablet, PC, etc.). Most of the time, I use Google Music, which now functions very much like Spotify (which I used to use). I just search for Albums or Artist I like and listen to them. If I want, I can even download them to by device from the app for offline listening.
I haven’t synchronized my phone with a PC in over 5 years. We’ve moved past the Palm Pilot days.
That’s because you and the people you know are total and complete losers.
Say hello to everybody who’s peeking into your every clould-based account,moron.
Hope for your sake that you don’t have anything very valuable in any of them……
Edited 2013-06-28 01:40 UTC
Because people like you are *IDOITS* I rip the musics from cd’s I bought 10 years ago to my tablets and phone,
Why the hell would I buy the same fracking stuff over and over again like losers like youreslf seem to do.
And no I don’t subscribe to and nor do I have any desire to subrice to any lame-assed internet music store.
If you are going to throw insults, at least spell them properly!
And in case you weren’t aware, iTunes lets you rip CDs too, and even lets you access your ripped music through the “cloud” so you don’t need to buy the same songs over and over again.
…the history repeats itself.
But seeing Sony with 10% of share!
I had a Sony Ericsson phone before, the quality was much superior than my current Samsung phone. Their last phones have a great design and cool color bar effects. It is really great to see another company raising against Samsung’s almost monopoly.
I think you question has been answered
I’ve said it before, and will say it again. Apple isn’t gunning for market share at all costs. Apple is not willing to release a very cheap iPhone. (Not, the iPhone 4 being given away on contract for “free” isn’t actually free). It’s still an expensive phone to buy compared to the average Android phone.
Android is slowly replacing the feature phone market, and Apple is just not gunning for that incredibly low margin market.
Steve Jobs said, when he launched the iPhone, that they were gunning for 10% of the market. Believe it. Apple wants to make more profits out of phones in the same way they make more profits out of Macs with a low market share. By concentrating on high margin high end phones.
Agreed on everything, but you made one error.
Steve Jobs said they were going for 1% of total mobile phone market share. They currently have more than 8%.
Apple is slowly getting there
Don’t you mean: they accomplished their goal within two years and have surpassed it by 800%?
No, I mean they are slowly shrinking to their target goal.
and then Apple will then end up once again with another very loyal but stagnant user base, wondering what just happened…
You mean with those massive claims that they own 90%(or whatever that percentage was) of over $1000 laptop market?
And you have ‘massive’ data to refute Apple’s claims?? (I doubt it).
I dispute the market share claim made by mkone, not Apple
No. I mean they make more actual profits than any PC manufacturers in selling PCs.
Ever heard the saying revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, cashflow is reality.
Apple took 45% of the profits in the PC industry off about 5% market share. ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/04/18/apples-mac-took-… ).
Apple doesn’t compete against Android. It competes against, HTC, Samsung, and the other manufacturers. It sits at the high end of that market with more money that it knows what to do with.