Not so much no, mostly because the user base is smaller it isn't dominant enough, but also Apple don't pass on your details everytime you buy/download an app.Originally Posted by Hicks12
Google have a stance of no privacy by default it appears that ethos was used by the Play store developers. Apparently you don't even have to install the app, just click the download button and they've got some personal info of yours.
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I aimed that statement more at the default browser, doesnt apple also refuse to let anything else be used so any alternative browser is simply a reskinned safari?.
Also I though Apple has something like a 40% market share which is pretty high, enough to warrant interest in their workings. Maybe I should look into this but I didnt really know that alot of information was passed when you bought an app, I simply assumed it was the bare essentials like username etc which isnt an issue as most things one can just look up online in directories.
No they really don't.
How would you cut the market share to be that?
The vast majority of phones that can browse the web, send a multimedia message, take a photo, play a game etc.
Do not run Apple, not even close. Their advertising might like you to think thats not the case thou.
I'd also say anyone who works in media (which I think sadly has a prerequisite of having practically zero numeracy, understanding averages is forbidden) forgets that and makes it sound more. I dare say as well certain slices of society Apple will have a very high share. I've heard people frequently say that on ABCs they are really represented in the As.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Hicks12 (10-04-2013)
According to this chart, with data from Gartner, iOS has 18.8% market share: http://www.quora.com/Mobile-Phones/W...rating-systems
Android's mobile market share of 64.1% is significantly less than Window's desktop market share of 91% so I don't think there is a significant claim to be made. Despite this I would welcome the investigation to conclude that Google needs to reduce the amount of data collected for simple actions like app purchases or even better force all data collection to be strictly opt-in.
"Google is using its Android mobile operating system as a Trojan Horse", while Microsoft has Mr Burning Platform Stephen Elop at Nokia at their Trojan.
as their Trojan
I've never heard of this group, so I just looked up the membership list and it's:FairSearch is a lobbying group consisting of many Google rivals including the likes of Microsoft, Nokia, Oracle, Trip Advisor and Twenga.
- tripadvisor, kayak, hotwire, expedia, sidestep, level.com, techtravel - travel search sites
- foundem - google search competition
- shopcity, twenga, thefind, allegro - google shopping
- admarketplace - ad searching, google search again?
- buscape - lord knows, heavy users of buzzword generators.
- microsoft - competes with Google on most things
- nokia - does what papa microsoft tells it to?
- oracle - the world's most evil company.
Interestingly enough, the statement from this group that "Based on growing evidence that Google is abusing its search monopoly to thwart competition". Well, gentle reader, last time I looked Google didn't have a monopoly - as evidenced by the existence of many other search engines, such as Ask, DuckDuckGo, oh, and of course ... Bing. Should we also be complaining because Bing is the default on Windows Phones and/or Xbox? Of course not, it's expected.
So what we have here is a list of (mostly) also-rans complaining because consumers aren't chosing them as "winners in the marketplace" (taken from the FairSearch 'essential principles' statement). In other words ... sour grapes!
I utterly agree with the above. I'd also like to see more user control on what privileges are granted in Android - e.g. if I don't want an app to be able to access my contact list, then I should be able to deny that access. And if that means that some of the app's features are non-functional then so be it. At the moment it's a case of "this app needs all these permissions", so if you don't like the set then your only option is not to install the app - poor control!
And yes, I too am a little unhappy about the amount of data gathering going on with Google - but then again, isn't that the flipside to all the "free" stuff that they offer? 'Don't accept the "freebies" if you don't want to pay the price' is my view - FairSearch to the contrary, it's not as if there's no choice ... other search engines instead of Google Search, Firefox instead of Chrome, iOS/WinPhone/Ubuntu/FirefoxOS instead of Android/ChromeOS, etc, etc.
Last edited by crossy; 10-04-2013 at 09:53 PM.
Career status: still enjoying my new career in DevOps, but it's keeping me busy...
Interesting challenge that I doubt will go anywhere..and in my view it's just as daft an idea as it was Microsoft being forced to waste money on N versions of windows and providing a browser choice popup.
They do kind of have a point - the mobile market at the moment is pretty uncompetitive in general, with only 3 main choices (4 if you count RIM but they are not likely to be here much longer) of OS, all of which lock you in to make it very difficult and expensive to switch between platforms. So in that sense there is an issue of sorts to be solved..however I don't think this is the way to do it. It is possible for new competition to emerge with the right innovation, but that hasn't happened yet as we're still in the middle of this software cycle.
It's also true about the Google integration, another good point - but again not one unique to Google..Microsoft are the worst of the lot for it in my view given how tightly Bing is integrated into the OS (it was the thing I hated most about mine) and Apple, whilst uncharacteristically open/configurable in this aspect are still guilty by the way the browser is locked down to use their rendering engine.
So in brief..all a fuss about nothing that will blow over before long.
As long as they don't go to the EU courts..then we'd all be in trouble!
On the second sentence, I absolutely agree.
On the first though, I'd point out that it is not necessarily the case that 64.1% fails the monopoly test.
A simplistic economic definition of monopoly is that of a single seller, but the real definition is to do with the ability of a single seller to dominate the market, thereby affecting prices by changing it's output, and it's output alone. 64.1% might be enough to do that. A lot depends on the market and the product.
For instance, conditions might be such that the minimum efficient scale necessary to fully expolit all available internal economies of scale is such that there's only room for one company to reach it. Any company that does can exploit that cost differential.
Nor, necessarily, is a monolpoly a bad thing, and the above example is one reason why it might not be.
Further, economists seek to avoid moral judgments on good and bad, like whether artificial price maintenance is good or bad, where it requires a value judgnent between whether the excess should go to producer or consumer, but concentrates on the overall goodness to the economy, in terms of wealth generation. If a monopoly results in increased efficiency, it might result ina higher net output for the economy, even though individual consumers pay more. How do you value a lit of small individual "bads", against a larger collective "good"?
But that's where legal interpretations of monopoly differ from economic ones, and that's certainly true of successive generations of "antitrust" legislation, in much of the world, and where market power, not sole supplier, is definitely the main criteria.
"Monopoly" is a bit like "recession" .... there is no one single universal definition, though some definitions are certainly far more common than others. For recession, most people mean two successive quarters of negative growth, but that is not the only definition. It's also like "average", where most people mean (excuse the pun) the arithmetic mean, but that's only one (if the most common) of about half a dozen averages I can think of.
Noxvayl (11-04-2013)
Ask Netscape what they think about this. Then try to work out how it's any different from MS leveraging a free IE to sell more IIS installations.
@ Saracen
I agree that monopolies aren't inherently bad but I can't justify calling Android a monopoly in the mobile market.
I find any case made that more "economic output" is good to be inherently flawed because it doesn't benefit society. That extra economic output only facilitates more inequality which has been found to be a negative influence on society and leads to people living in that society being worse off. Economic reasoning I find to be an oxymoron, it doesn't reflect reality because economics is divorced from it.
Google are really bad tbh, I work in the sports betting industry and google do not allow ANY betting based Apps in the Google Play. The mobile betting industry is rated at £6billion, Google have a 55% market share (or something) therefore it is very difficult to reach users without TV advert size money. Betting is legal and regulated in the UK, Google should not be allowed to dictate thier own personal moral view on the world, taking advantage of thier monopoly (duopoly with Apple). Microsoft stop crying, your product is not desirable, get over it.
The US have laws that make this very difficult for Google, it isn't their decision unless they re-structure it.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
When it comes to software I don't think companies should be scrutinised by things like this, if they're market leaders its because their software is better than yours so suck it up or make better software yourself...
Quite, so was that fines of hundreds of millions of dollars going into some pockets paid for by raised prices of products by the end users?
Well Microsoft did have that Antitrust ban for like 15 years so never say never.
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