News - Google activates 160k Android phones daily

[HEXUS]

Despite the timing, Google CEO Eric Schmidt declined to make direct comparisons to the iPhone in a Guardian interview

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[capt_cornflake]

Except it may not be...

The wording of the article is rather misleading as the 160K seems to based on extrapolating from the activation figure for a particular date in May and assuming a constant growth rate.

it may well be in the ball park, but it's rather misleading to report estimates as fact.

I know it's reported the same way in the Guardian article mentioned, but it only takes a minutes thought to actually report the news rather than just regurgitating what's been put out by Google's PR machine...

[Brewster0101]

The battlefield for the Android Phones and iphones war is very much set. Other OS's need not bother turning up.

I think Android phone sales will over take Iphone sales very soon and won't take too long to over take the number of iphones sold.

Lets face it, there are many makes and models with Android at all different prices. All carry a variant of a brilliant os.

There is only one manufacture of the iphone (2 models, that only support the new os4) and they are very expensive.....

Apple - prepare to meet your demise - and its not Microsoft

[Mattus]

Apple - prepare to meet your demise - and its not Microsoft

Hardly. You can get an Android phone for £50. It would be very surprising if there weren't more phones shipped with Android than with iOS. Apple will carry on selling millions of iPhones for £500 each. It's dominant over Android at the higher end of the market and doesn't really care about anything else.

[scaryjim]

... the 160K seems to based on extrapolating from the activation figure for a particular date in May and assuming a constant growth rate.

...

I know it's reported the same way in the Guardian article mentioned...

Actually, based on the Guardian article, the 60% growth rate is based on the 160k activations figure, not the other way round:

Google is now activating 160,000 mobile phones using its Android software a day, equivalent to 4.8m a month, according to the company's chief executive, Eric Schmidt.

The number is also accelerating, having been put at 100,000 a day in the third week of May during Google's annual I/O conference, Schmidt said – indicating sales growth of 60% per month.

Now, to be objective both figures are issued from Google and we aren't provided with the evidence to back them up, but since it would be very easy for one of the market analysis companies to produce figures refuting those estimates I think Google will have made sure their estimates are pretty damn accurate...

[Singh400]

Love it, moar please.

[crossy]

Hardly. You can get an Android phone for £50. It would be very surprising if there weren't more phones shipped with Android than with iOS. Apple will carry on selling millions of iPhones for £500 each. It's dominant over Android at the higher end of the market and doesn't really care about anything else.

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but you've also identified the danger that Brewster0101 is getting at. Namely that iOS's major advantage is in application availability - heck, even Apple use that as the centre of their advertising!

However, if there's a shedload of "cheap" 'droid phones, then if they sell well - and I think they will - then that's more potential consumers of products from the Android Market Place. Developers will see this and may start to migrate from iTMS to AMP. And if there's less new content on iTMS then iOS's main advantage starts to slip away. Then there's the trickle-up factor - you get decent basic models, and the "premium" ones have a more established base to use. So your "executive" 'droid phones can start layering on the features - user-replaceable batteries, memory expansions, fancier phone hardware, video recording, etc - taking the fight very much to Apple.

There's already been a lot of bitching about Apple's "interesting" pre-req's for developers making it more difficult/expensive to get into that market (or so I've been told). On the other hand 'droid development seems to be cheap and relatively simple to dabble with. Worse still (and this is also here-say on my part) as a business owner I'd find it easier to equip my sales/engineers/etc with any required customised apps if they're using 'droid rather than iOS - because I can install unsigned packages, whereas to do this on iOS means having to root the iPhone.

My understanding is that iPhone, like iPad, is very much sold as a "fashion" item - trouble with that is that these change very fast. Certainly I wouldn't buy an iPhone - for me Android has less compromises.

I would suggest that HP probably agree with Brewster0101 to an extent - since they've said they're repositioning WebOS for the embedded market. You don't pull out of a market you've got a toe in, unless you're sure you're going to lose.

Bob

[Lucio]

One thing I'd love to know is, are there more free applications that people want in the Android market place than in the Apple one? It might help explain the staggering difference in sales figures.

[Brewster0101]

Apple will carry on selling millions of iPhones for £500 each. It's dominant over Android at the higher end of the market and doesn't really care about anything else.

There are more people in the world interested in value than owning an iphone. It so happens all the wanna be iphone lovers keep buying the new iphones as soon as they come out, creating a surge of sales. But now the common Joe's are getting new phones, they are choosing not the iphone because they want value which is where Android and HTC operate.

There are also more high end users that want value too. The iphone's have never been the best phones on the market. They are all flawed in many ways and the iphone 4 is no exception. While most review sites rate the HTC Desire over the iphones (even the iphone 4). It comes down to the same thing. Alot of iphone lovers constantly tripping over them selfs to buy the new iphone, While the masses wait for their upgrades - as time goes on more people will be jumping on the Android band wagon and sales will over take Apples iphone.

[capt_cornflake]

Actually, based on the Guardian article, the 60% growth rate is based on the 160k activations figure, not the other way round:



Now, to be objective both figures are issued from Google and we aren't provided with the evidence to back them up, but since it would be very easy for one of the market analysis companies to produce figures refuting those estimates I think Google will have made sure their estimates are pretty damn accurate...

OK I fess up I was wrong. Having read the article again I can see I obviously mis-interpreted it first time around. Apologies to all involved.

[ipwiz]

I like usb power and removable memory - why pay £100 for an extra 16Gig memory.... Android and open souce will rule in the long run...

[Mattus]

There are more people in the world interested in value than owning an iphone.

Of course there are - but it's not especially important! You have to sell a lot of cheap Nokias to reach the profit Apple makes on each iPhone.

There are also more high end users that want value too.

as time goes on more people will be jumping on the Android band wagon and sales will over take Apples iphone.

The statistics just don't bear your view out. This piece from last month shows not only that iPhone OS is three times as popular as Android, but that 80% of people with an iPhone plan to buy another iPhone as their next phone. In comparison, 70% of Android users plan to buy another Android. So Apple is doing just fine in retaining its customers!

While most review sites rate the HTC Desire over the iphones (even the iphone 4). It comes down to the same thing.

I challenge you to show me a reputable review site which categorically rates the Desire above the iPhone 4.

[dangel]

Thing is, people want the new iPhone so long as they haven't seen an alternative - because they think Apple still leads the market (no, not in sales) and haven't seen an high end Android phone. Put one in their hands and they're suddenly like 'ooohh' because in all honesty Android is like "the iPhone but not ****". Sales are exploding and the marketplace has grown massively in a very short time. Personally i'd say the utter balls up of the iPhone4 launch smells of 'rush' to me - Apple simply don't have the edge they once did and they know it. The 3GS was really behind the times and the iPhone4 really doesn't offer anything (bar a nice screen) over and above the competition - in fact the UIs still pretty much the same boring grid of icons from the very first iPhone. And of course Apple's stuck on a fairly slow to market cycle now - whereas HTC (and all the others) aren't which means we'll see a better everything (hardware wise) with a few short months.

So everyone with a 3gs/3g/2g iPhone buys the iPhone4 - great - but what about entirely new customers? I'd suggest that's a bit more interesting.

Just some thoughts, i've owned both..

[Mattus]

The 3GS was really behind the times and the iPhone4 really doesn't offer anything (bar a nice screen) over and above the competition - in fact the UIs still pretty much the same boring grid of icons from the very first iPhone.

When any phone manufacturer worth its salt (HTC, Samsung, Motorola) bolts its own touch interface onto its Android phones, what does it say about the Android UI? Is the default UI really that unsatisfactory?

And whilst on the subject of UI - why can the latest Android devices, complete with 1GHz CPUs, STILL not manage smooth scrolling?

The iPhone interface may not be original any more, but UI 'gloss' and coherency are issues which matter to many people.

[crossy]

When any phone manufacturer worth its salt (HTC, Samsung, Motorola) bolts its own touch interface onto its Android phones, what does it say about the Android UI? Is the default UI really that unsatisfactory?

Couldn't comment - haven't seen the default Android UI - because all the phones I've seen have had manufacturer's "add value" by layering on something of their own on top? Is even the Nexus One "unmodified" in this respect?

And whilst on the subject of UI - why can the latest Android devices, complete with 1GHz CPUs, STILL not manage smooth scrolling?

Wrong - my SE X10 smooth scrolls between panes fine. Only time I see stepping is with the slide up display of all-apps, and then only if I've got WiFi switched on, (don't ask me to explain why this is the case - power drain?). I can certainly point at areas where the iOS devices are noticeably slower than the 'droid equivalent.
Of course, I'm willing to accept the charge that I'm easily pleased...

The iPhone interface may not be original any more, but UI 'gloss' and coherency are issues which matter to many people.

I'll cheerfully admit that Apple are really good at designing "intuitive" UI's - I wish I could get the iOS-stylee multi-touch on my X10, oh, and the iOS media interface (I find the Mediascape one on the X10 nice to look at but a bit on the clunky side to use - wish they'd used something like the Walkman NWZ-A845's interface instead).
On the other hand, each 'droid phone I've seen has something that the manufacturer's added that makes you think "yes, that's good". For example the Timescape UI on the X10 is really quite neat - and very quick/smooth to scroll up and down (going back to your first point about the jerky scrolling).

For me the choice between iPhone 4 came down to the choice between the range of apps and accessories on iPhone versus the "freedom" available on Android. In the end the abilities to fully change the device to suit me and use whatever software I wanted to interface to it swung it to 'droid. So far I've not regretted that decision - especially in light of the much-reported issues with signal strength on the latest Apple device - but I'll be the first to admit that this decision could easily go the other way for other people.

Bob

[dangel]

When any phone manufacturer worth its salt (HTC, Samsung, Motorola) bolts its own touch interface onto its Android phones, what does it say about the Android UI? Is the default UI really that unsatisfactory?

No, not really but the fact that you can install a myriad of launcher apps (and widgets) to replace your homescreen is far better than what's on offer from Apple IMHO. Sense is one of many - it just so happens it's developed by a major phone manufacturer themselves and very pretty. That said Android 3 is going to be a UI shakeup which will be very interesting to see and again Apple will need to compete. There's only so many ways to build smartphone hardware (after all, it's a screen and not much else) so you can hardly blame manu's from trying to differentiate their products with software.

And whilst on the subject of UI - why can the latest Android devices, complete with 1GHz CPUs, STILL not manage smooth scrolling?

Shrug - seems fine to me so i'm not sure what your referring to..

The iPhone interface may not be original any more, but UI 'gloss' and coherency are issues which matter to many people.

You're missing the point - Android offers the gloss thesedays (and coherency - this isn't WM we're talking about the whole OS works the same way Sense or not), show any iPhone owner your animated wallpaper for example the reaction is instant, but more importantly it does what people care about far more - provides information. A grid of icons is dumb - what I want on my homescreen is things like weather, social networking stuff, widgets relaying data, the time and date (not in teeny weeny text either!) and the ability to choose and configure my screen(s) as I see fit. The phone should fit around me - not a big leap by any means. Think about this one carefully. What are Microsoft up to with WP7? Copying Apple? Nope - and that surprised me - but they are building their UI around information and because of that it looks far more interesting than I'd suspected it would be.

In fact, the way I see it - the only people 'going grid' right now are Apple. Now either they're utter geniuses and everyone else is wrong or they're in dire need of a UI update themselves. In fact, I suspect the next gen of iPhones will see such a shakeup. Apple did a great thing with the original iPhone - the problem is they've really not changed the UI at all and people are going to get bored of it. I did.

Apple set the bar very high, the problem for me is that it's remained at that level for years now and this has allowed Android to catch up, and coupled with a much faster release cycle outpace Apple on the feature set front for a while now. In some ways it's Apple who are playing catchup - i'm not sure a (very) nice screen is enough any more, especially when you drop the quality ball so comprehensively at launch and fail to do anything new with your UI whatsoever. Really, stood playing with one in Tesco's the other day, I found myself seriously underwhelmed. So here's my question, what's so appealing about the iPhone4 disregarding the new screen? In the past i'd say this was an easy question to answer but now? What does it really have over and above Android?

Competition is good for us.
Think Different.