Tuesday 25 January 2011

The great Android vs. iPhone 'I told you so'

I'm sorry, I have to do this. You see, back in 2009 I swapped my chunky little Sony Ericsson (which, may I add had a very nifty camera) for an HTC Hero.


At the time, I was egged on my the nice gentlemen at Square Circle Media. These guys all had iPhones, but knew I hated the mac operating system, so they wanted to see how i'd get on with another option. At the time, this was very open minded of them. When I say they 'had iPhones' what I really mean is they were pretty much card carrying members of the Steve Jobs party. The morning a new iPhone version came out the office was empty until 11am.


So, partly in an attempt to prove there was 'another way', and partly because the idea of synching with my google mail appealed, I got an android phone.


Image from bgr.com


I remember going to PokerCoder (what? I code a bit. Free bar </of>), an event filled with some of London's most techie people, and bringing up the iPhone v.s android debate. Needless to say, here I was in apple heartland and encountered a lot of opposition. Lengthy debates ensued. Strangers played with my phone, I became known as android girl. (I kid you not, however considering it was a 98% male event just 'girl' would have done). The conclusion was, that although my android was a nice bit of kit, the design wasn't as attractive and although the android market was open, this would actually mean a lot of junk to be filtered through in the search for useful applications.


It appears that my android rantings may have hit home on one occasion, as I got a DM from the lovely @creacog in June last year, to tell me all about his new HTC desire. The android movement was gathering pace. Earlier in 2010 it had hit North America - sales had increased 707% year-on-year and Carphone Warehouse recently released interesting third quarter figures.


Chief executive Roger Taylor said Carphone did not keep precise figures on how many phones were selling on either the Android or Apple platform, but added: "At some point in 2010 the Android overtook every other operating platform." 


And if that isn't enough evidence that android is victorious, from the same article: Nielsen estimates Android accounts for 40.8% of US Smartphone sales – against 26.9% for iPhone."


I think it's about time to declare a winner people. I won't say it....

2 comments:

  1. Yep, very happy with my HTC Desire, especially since Android 2. Purchase of course influenced by Android-Girl's infectious enthusiasm. Also to some extent by Apple's negative behaviour towards Flash/AIR :-/

    As to the market share battle, Apple has a long history of making profit within very low market share (Macs v PCs). Unless that mind-set has changed I doubt they'd care much on the %, and will be probably more interested in shipped units and $profit ?

    Top of my wish-list for Android though would be to recognise that they have many Mac users, and it would be nice to have Mac syncing out of the box. There is of course Missing Sync (not free) from MarkSpace.

    All the best
    creacog

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  2. Hiya, thanks for the input and some very good points raised!

    I suppose we cannot declare android the winner until $profit overtakes iPhone, and given that iPhone handsets are so much more expensive it may take a while. It's interesting that market share doesn't bother apple, but with a loyal following and more expensive products I don't suppose it needs to.

    I am really surprised at the synching issue. I have never tried (despite now owning a macbook) mainly because everything I wan't to synch (gmail, social media) does so when I turn on the android wifi. There's definitely a need for it though - if nothing else i'll probably want to back up my contacts at some point, and be infuriated when I can't!

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