5 reasons Google Android will beat iPhone, BlackBerry and WinMo

Inspired Zdnet’s prediction of the smartphone market, I gazed into my own crystal ball for 5 reasons why Google Android will prevail in the coming years.

  1. Android is an open source operating system that welcomes every handset manufacturer. This means there will be many manufacturers churning out Android powered handsets.
  2. Android SDK is powerful, feature-rich and yet easy to use. Good SDK attracts good developers, who will develop more and better apps.
  3. Android app store (Market) does not restrict the type of applications. This means happy developers, more creative apps and makes the phone more than being just a phone.
  4. Android phones are highly usable usable with cool user interface, seamless Google’s integration, multitask-able, etc.. We know users love great phones.
  5. Android phones will have a huge variety, ranging from very low to very high price. This means Android is made affordable for any market segment.

 

Gartner forecasted the market share in 2012. I have my own:

  • Symbian – 32%
  • Android – 22%
  • iPhone – 18%
  • BlackBerry – 12%
  • WinMo – 6%
  • Others – 10%

Symbian will still top the market share due to its hardwork done in the last decade, as we have seen it trending down in the last few years. WinMo will go down even more if it continues using the Windows mentality. Android and iPhone will be the 2 most talk about mobile OS, with RIM doing catching up. The rest, including Palm Pre, will fight for survival.

I will review my crystal gazing ability in 2 years time..

htc-snapdragon

HTC Dragon on Android

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October 7th, 2009 in Android, Interesting, iPhone | tags:
  • DannyB
    Android will win over iPhone for the same reason Microsoft won over Apple in the 1980's.

    If you are a hardware manufacturer, you need an OS. You might want the classic Macintosh OS, oops, I mean, the iPhone OS, but Apple isn't going to license it to you. So what can you get instead? You can get MS-DOS, oops, I meant, you can get Android.

    Apple has the opportunity to be "the Microsoft of cell phones" by licensing their OS. They won't, and so will miss this opportunity. After all, other hardware makers might not conform to the religious purity of Apple's notion of style.

    When Mac came out (1984), Microsoft had only MS-DOS. Windows wasn't even a gleam in Bill Gates' eye. Fast forward less than ten years (1992) and look where we were. Windows everywhere. In 1992 it was still quite inferior to Mac, but by Windows 95 it had caught up substantially.

    Android will become "the Microsoft of cell phone OSes". And in far less time. People will perceive Android as just part of what a cell phone is, just like today many non-tech people just assume Windows is part of what a PC is.
  • Like Dave said, this crystal gazing is purely based on my personal opinion, as a mobile phone user and also as an application developer.

    I am fortunate to have all phones with these different mobile operating systems, using them on day to day basis and developing for them. Hence, I do see the superiority/weaknesses each possesses. i would just mention a couple things here:

    1) The review process of iPhone apps take far too long. I have never had a release, nor an update, approved within 10 days. On the other hand for Android Marketplace, it takes just 10 min.
    2) The potential of Android is tremendous. Imagine, for example, Samsung coming out with a sleek Android phone that is comparable to Apple iPhone, that has longer battery life, FM radio and whatever feature that is not in iPhone.
    3) Developing on Java platform is more comfortable for most of us. It has a gentler learning curve and simpler structure (i admit this is with sacrifices, if compared to variants of C).
    4) iPhone developers are the only group of developers making big money now. But Android does have its monetization options, and it can only improve.
    5) On the enterprise side, if companies were to issue phones, BlackBerry RIM beats Microsoft. RIM push technology is truly push technology (iPhone push is a pseudo push anyway). And they have their BES.
    6) As for WinMo, it is just not my dish - slow and unsightly :)
  • As with anything. The crystal gazing is impacted by what you personally are using the mobile device for.

    The apps I use on a day to day basis aren't available (yet) on android. I hate Apple in general so iPhone is out (and they don't have all the apps I use either). While I don't love Microsoft and there are days I wish I could use something else, WinMo is the best solution for me.

    Time will tell.
  • Rovas
    I think you are wrong here is why:
    1. Android developers don' t make money of their apps. iPhone and WinMo devs make lot of money. Developers go were the money is made.
    2. Google has the same weird rules for apps as Apple. Plus the tools according to some aren' t as good as those for iPhone
    3. Symbian is developed mainly by a organization of phone manufactures and of all the ones you mentioned is the number one phone OS worldwide. Nokia, the largest phone manufacturer, is developing it to become more competitive.
    5. A majority of users just want a phone not a miniature laptop. Many smartphones fail at battery life, reception, voice quality. I personally know a lot of managers who use another phone just to make\ receive important calls
    6. Microsoft has a huge following at large firms and they provide solutions that include Window Mobile (like IBM, Oracle do for their hardware or software solutions) or they provide legacy support for existing solutions
  • Windows mentality: A belief that Microsoft is big, influential and can continue to do what they are already doing.

    The Windows Mobile 6.1 is years behind Android/iPhone/BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile 7.0 would not be out until some time next year. They do need a big change.
  • JL
    You said: "WinMo will go down even more if it continues using the Windows mentality".
    Define Windows mentality.
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