“Now, all of this exciting competition could be just a mirage if Apple blows the world away with the iPhone 5S, if Windows Phone 8 devices all bomb as Microsoft’s (MSFT) ill-fated Surface has, and if Samsung’s dominance forces rival Android vendors to quit the market. But for the first time in a while, I feel as though I don’t really know where the mobile industry is headed. And that is very exciting.”
BGR.com
I see where the mobile industry is headed: Android dominated world. Google made Android because they didn’t want Apple to dominate the market. I’m not sure that I prefer a world dominated by Google.
Market share of smartphone sold tells only one part of the story. I don’t know why this is so important for the press. If you want to know which platform performs better than you have to look a many more factors like ads revenues, how big is the developers community, etc.
With this latest comScore figures, we clearly see that Androïd as a platform is profiting Samsung and only Samsung. Google isn’t even making money out of Androïd. And don’t tell me that they do on search, they do it anyway on every platforms. Same for ads. And speaking of ads, these are so everywhere in our “free” digital world (thanks to Google, Facebook et al.) that their selling values is starting to decline. Think about it.
The coupling of Google’s Androïd with Samsung tells us one clear thing: the only real way to make real money in the smartphone business is to have an integrated stack, just like Apple with their iPhones and iOS. They sell a lot of them and they make a lot of money out of this. Same could apply to Microsoft with Windows 8 and … Well, they don’t do Smartphone. Yet.
So here it is. 84 days since the launch of iOS 6. It feels fresh but way too much Android. I hate much of the design of this. Speaking of Android, according to David Pogue’s review, Google admits that Maps for iOS is better than Android version but lack the iPad support. No wonder why Android tablets are so crippled, they just don’t know how to make software for them it seems.
Finally, look carefully at what Google is offering with their own Maps. What did Apple want from Google that they couldn’t or refused to do that isn’t part of Google Maps now? 3D maps?
JFMartin
