Smart phones
Feb. 9th, 2011 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bellinghmanI see from the Reg that Android has overtaken Symbian as the most popular smartphone OS, with 33% of the market.
Apple has fallen back a bit (numbers doubled, but share down to 16%).
Windows Phone 7 is sitting on 2%.
This is interesting, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Nokia have lost their dominance of the market. This is probably down to Apple and RIM having shown that there's no need to go for Symbian in a phone. Nokia could be in big trouble as a result.
Secondly, Apple have done only reasonably well - in theory, they could have been sitting there in first place, not well back in third, having effectively reinvented the smart phone model that Android is exploiting so well.
Thirdly, Android sales are up sevenfold year-on-year, so some further growth is to be expected. I wouldn't be surprised to see them top 50% of the market, at which point app makers will be really considering the platform.
Fourthly, though Microsoft have lost overall percentage, with WP7's introduction failing as yet to take over their earlier OSes, WP7 is very new to the market, and it's going to be another period or two before we can tell what its market trajectory will really be - they could yet follow Android.
I think the next year could be rather interesting.
Apple has fallen back a bit (numbers doubled, but share down to 16%).
Windows Phone 7 is sitting on 2%.
This is interesting, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Nokia have lost their dominance of the market. This is probably down to Apple and RIM having shown that there's no need to go for Symbian in a phone. Nokia could be in big trouble as a result.
Secondly, Apple have done only reasonably well - in theory, they could have been sitting there in first place, not well back in third, having effectively reinvented the smart phone model that Android is exploiting so well.
Thirdly, Android sales are up sevenfold year-on-year, so some further growth is to be expected. I wouldn't be surprised to see them top 50% of the market, at which point app makers will be really considering the platform.
Fourthly, though Microsoft have lost overall percentage, with WP7's introduction failing as yet to take over their earlier OSes, WP7 is very new to the market, and it's going to be another period or two before we can tell what its market trajectory will really be - they could yet follow Android.
I think the next year could be rather interesting.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-09 02:17 pm (UTC)Microsoft is very strict with the hardware spec on WP7, making it less attractive for 3d party manufacturers than Android. However, Microsoft has traditionally taken good care of developers, and it's not at all unlikely this will come to their rescue, especially if the Android platform gets too fragmented.
It's also interesting to note that the various platforms have different preferred languages:
WP7 - C# (effectively - it's Silverlight/ .NET)
Android - Java
iPhone - Objective-C
Symbian - C++
Blackberry - Java
Looking at that list, I'd bet on Android, Blackberry and WP7.