By Notice the “when” – I strongly believe that Android Market will outpace the iPhone App Store at some point in the not too distant future (2 years). Steve Jobs wouldn’t agree. On the iPhone App Store’s first birthday, Apple published a Press Release boasting about their 1.5+ Billion apps, 65,000+ apps, and 100,000+ developers. And Jobs himself chimed in on the significance:
“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”
[Picture via TheiPhoneBlog]
There are a lot of “others” and I wouldn’t put any of them in the same class as Android. Carriers have their own stores, Manufacturers have their own stores and other Mobile OS’ have their own stores… but Android is different. The iPhone’s position is largely due to their first mover implementer advantage, and I completely agree that the company deserves a lot of credit and respect for what they’ve created. But Android is different.
Android was the first mover of a different kind. A mobile OS that is free in more ways than one: monetarily free, carrier-free, manufacturer-free… anyone can use it. How many different iPhones are there? Three:
- Original iPhone
- iPhone 3G
- iPhone 3GS
Next year we’ll likely see at least one more – or maybe even two or three more iPhones. By the end of this year, we’re going to see 15 to 20 new Android phones. The year after that I would estimate at least double the number of Android Phones to launch in countries all over the world. I don’t see how Apple can keep up in terms of handset volume.
More phones = More consumers = More dollars up for grabs. Developers will follow the money. If you ask me, it is only a matter of time before Android overtakes Apple. I’m not counting out Windows Mobile or Symbian Foundation completely… anything is possible but I honestly think Android is in the best long-term position. Palm has something special with WebOS but they have the same issue as Apple – they are their only manufacturer (at least for the time being).
I don’t disagree with Mr. Jobs… others will have a hard time catching up. Just not Android – it is inevitable.
Rob its more complex than the wishful thinking that Android will outpace iPhone in a year or two. Yes, Android has more Phones coming its way, but where are the carriers ? At&T is happy with iPhone, Sprint is laying its eggs in Palm’s basket. Verizon – they are the worst control freaks and will lock any phone down.
Also its the Quality, not Quantity at play here. iPhone hardware is no doubt superior to all(except camera). Its openGL blows water down any other phone, and openGL is what those games developer use which account for half of iPhone Apps. Not to mention the developer tools for Android leave a lot to be desired. Plus where is the marketing ? Hardly anyone knows about Android (not just laymen but even tech people). Google has to work very hard on all fronts to be able to compete with iPhone. And so far, Google’s casual attitude is not helping…
thats exactly right. the fact that Android is open source and anyone who wants to make something for android can. It doesn’t have to get approved by apples controlling overlord.
Another thing to consider is that the Android marketplace isn’t the ONLY way to get something on your phone. There will be no accounting for the other avenues of getting (free or paid) apps on android phones.
I sort of agree with Jason but not completely. I agree that the iphone is better for developers and that not many people know about android. However 1. although it is true that its quality not quantity android will eventually be on many handsets therefore more people will know about it and android is a brilliant OS so it has quality. 2. Android far surpasses the iphones OS and as soon as people realize this (hopefully) then android sales will sky rocket (as long as a good handset comes out). so google has to aim high and work hard.
Just because there will be more handsets available doesn’t mean they will all be sold. Other handsets with Android on them will surely fail if the market is flooded with them. I doubt any version of iPhone will fail.
If more affordable iPhones are on the market I think people will flock to them and help Apple dominate the smart phone market. We will see but there has to be more than an OS to eat away significant market share and developers from the red hot Apple app store.
Just because android has more devices, I don’t think that necessarily makes them have more customers. I know TONS of people personally with iPhones and none with Android phones. I know that is because there is only 1 android phone out so far(in the US), but i just don’t see too many people switching to android from iPhone (even though android is the better choice). Apple succeeds in every product they make, and unless google (or someone else) does something about that, the iPhone will probably still have more users than Android.
Some people here are missing the bigger picture. Yes, very few people know about Android today — but that’s because in the U.S., there is only one phone available and it’s on the #4 carrier. In 6 – 12 months there will be a dozen or more phones available across a number of carriers. The iPhone is gorgeous, with the fastest most responsive UI on the planet. However, Android with better processors and improved Java performance (all on the roadmap), will get there too. In fact, the Sense UI’s active widgets are *already* light years ahead of the iPhone’s static icons. And Android is open source and free to developers. Apple already “lost” the PC war to Microsoft under nearly the same circumstances (closed hardware vs. open hardware) — and Microsoft is by all measures completely incompetent. Google isn’t. The iPhone will continue in a very popular, very profitable niche, but eventually, it will be easily outsold by Android handsets. It’s inevitable.
@Jay – you’re right that Android OS has better quality. If not, I wouldn’t be wasting my time on this phandroid blog. But its the perception which sells. Its the brand and the Eye-Candy that lures masses who can’t tell an OS from the blue power button on their computer. Just as Linux is a great OS but its user perception doesn’t reflect that. What people fall for is that polished UI, sleek design, Games, and “We got an App for that” campaigns. To make matters worse, Apple is a fierce competitor and will leapfrog any improvements Android makes, to force Android and others to always play a catch up. That’s why I think Google has a hard nut to crack here !
I agree with a lot of the statements here, but like the article says android will have loads of handsets very soon, and even more next year and so on. Iphone has been a great success obviously, but the Android game has just begun. Look at all the great improvements we’ve had already in the OS. More powerfull devices will be released and will be able to run “high-end” games and applications. There is limitations to the iphone world as Steve has to turn down the apps he doesn’t like – android has no limitations what so ever. Of course that means a lot of rubbish apps, but who cares, the good apps shine through via the rating and feedback system.
Well after looking at a few of these comments, I have a few my own:
1.) To the person that stated OpenGL…Android uses that also. So that’s not a problem.
2.) Person who stated no one knows it…well the two part answer to that is (A) Nobody knows that it’s called “Mac OS X “Mobile”, it’s just called an iPhone. The ONLY recognizable OS nowadays on a phone is WinMo. You don’t hear RIM, WebOS, Symbian from a normal consumers mouth. Windows make sure to advertise their OS’s name everytime you boot up your phone! And what true tech person hasn’theard of Android. If they haven’t…they’re not tech lovers. Just fakers.
3.) Use Symbian/Nokia as examples. They have phones for the no name prepaid, big name prepaid, contract free, contract sub, contract mid…high…no contract insane. Nokia/Symbian is EVERYWHERE. And look who dominates the smartphone AND phone market period. When you have choice…for EVERYONE, it does make a different. And the fact that you’ll have different companies to choose makes it better. You’re not a Samsung fan…try LG. Not LG, try Motorola…HTC…Huawei…etc. That is a good business strategy which popularity can not beat.
4.) And the app store business. I don’t know about that one. But that doesn’t make it bad. Simply because it’s been stated Android users at as reckless with their purchases as iPhone users. We value our apps…keep them far longer than iPhone users. I find NOT having to find a new app every five minutes better than 1.5 billion downloads from mostly people being dissatisfied with their purchase and downloading something else that is basically the same thing.
Whilst I agree with the argument, you miss out a slightly important factor. The app store doesn’t just service iPhones. It also services the iPod Touch. I know the iPod doesn’t have as much hardware capability, but that’s a pretty diverse market and I’d bet a large one, and probably a large part of the app store’s numbers.
I don’t think Microsoft and Nokia analogy has worked for Android so far. MS PCs and Nokia phones succeeded by offering devices in all price ranges. Android phones are still as expensive as iPhone and Palm if not more. I could get iPhone 3G for $99(contract), but T-Mobile is asking $199 for HTC Magic which is worse hardware than 3G. If we can get unlocked phones for Android under $299 and Free with contract in US – then maybe Android has a chance
@iDavey – “And what true tech person hasn’theard of Android. If they haven’t…they’re not tech lovers. Just fakers.”
Ya that tech elitism will get you anywhere just like it got linux nowhere…Its true people haven’t heard of Android. And for a good reason – coz nobody markets it. The new shiny Android phones are coming with their own UI without Google Branding – coz they know Google UI sucks ! So, how will Android differentiate itself if neither Google nor Phones mention it. Android is still a beta product. Its emaulator and dev tools suck compared to Apple’s Xcode IDE. Google, great in other things, is not famous for its UI.
I think you’re ignoring an important thing:
More devices + more manufacturer = Compatibility Problems
Apple delivers at the moment an eco-system; there are some hardware components that the first generation iphones misses, but they are still working!
Providers will crap android e.g: Vodafone will want to deliver their own Appstore; so htc and so on! Android will be craped by Alliance menbers !
One big problem Google faces in trying to catch up to the App Store is they need to open the market place worldwide. Currently, the Android market only allows access to the free apps (not paid) for many countries. This obviously limits the appeal in those areas and it is likely those areas would be more open to Android than the iPhone anyway. The Europeans seem to pay more attention to what the phone does than how it looks (unlike us silly Americans)
I am holding judgment until the 2nd generation of android phones hit. The Hero being the first of the 2nd generation in my opinion.
“65,000+ apps, and 100,000+ developers” … so some developers made nothing?
iPhone = Objective C. A mismatch of C++ and OO C++. Devs hate it. And the IDE sucks too.
Android = Java. The most popular programming language ever made. Android also supports Eclipse, the most popular IDE for Java. Only caveat is the Android Emulator, needs a bit of work (especially the OpenGL emulation).
Devs will love programming for Android. …I know I do! :)
do we know how many of those billions of apple downloads were for that fart sound-board application?
HAHAHA (Skurtis) – got all the Apple fan boys out of the woodworks with this post…
This is EXACTLY what I was talking about with one of my good friends here at work. I told him remember, there is only 1 iPhone (brand) and by the end of this year how many NEW – and I mean actually NEW designed android phones, and not just the same hardware, an over clocked ARM, with a new case put on them and called NEW (i.e. iPhone 3g and iPhone 3gs). Anyway its besides the point, I told him, imagine 1 company vs lets say 25 and 1 company produced 65k apps in 2 years respectably. I said imagine 25 different companies having there own developers and I’m not a mathematician but that’s a whole lot of apps and awesome phones to choose from vs the same phone with different cases….
I love all the different points people made in here, for instance, HTC Sense is light years ahead of apples static plain old icons (NO widgets? Come on Apple your so up tight). Also the Microsoft and Apple analogy of how Microsoft completely dominated the personal computer market and only leaving apple to a special niche in the world. I can’t wait for HTC, DELL, SONY, SAMSUNG, MOTOROLA and all the other companies that will be producing our NEXT generation Smartphones!!!
*brain fart* with my “65,000+ apps, and 100,000+ developers” comment. Please ignore.
ok, alot of great comments on here…i need to point out 1 thing tho…android is a result of the Open Handset Alliance, which is actively growing. It has alot of backers, from every stage of development and organization in terms of mobile technology. you just can’t beat that when you compare to apple, nokia, palm or even winmo in terms of long-term application (talking 5-10 years). Android, whichever flavor of UI is implemented, is hands down the future of mobile telecommunications computing.
@Jason (first post)
Aside from openGL, what have you found horribly wrong with the Android development tools? I have have coded for nearly every mobile OS (including iPhone) and have found the Android tools lightyears ahead of most. The android simulator isn’t as bad as iphone’s simulator, and the debugging/coding through eclipse is very solid.
I think your other points are spot on. When NDK comes out with donut, I imagine we will see many more games (which is where the money is going to be).
A lot of people do not know what they are talking about here.
1. Sprint is in the open handset alliance
2. Apple has to compete with all the open handset alliance members before they compete with Google.
3. Craig is right, Coders hate coding for apple, and then when they get the app done they might be able to get their app on the market and then…
4. It doesn’t matter if Google has the market world wide or not yet because you can download the .apk from anywhere and install it, if you want that in an iphone you have to jailbreak it and void your warranty.
@skurtis
Yet you didn’t disprove my point.
I stated “tech” people. I know consumers don’t know what Android is. They just know it’s the Google phone.
But a true tech person that researches the latest in tech knows what Android is. For the years it first started, it was in most of, if not all, the gadget/phone blogs and such.
I’m not speaking on normal consumers, because as I stated…normal consumers don’t even know the OS name of the iPhone or Nokias. WinMo is the only OS known by it’s name.
But in the end…I feel Android will go the way of Symbian.
Nobody even knowing it’s on they phone. But the market will show it’s out there.
And if I’m a CEO of these companies…I rather have the money and market recognition, rather than the name recognition.
If all else fails…they can call it Google phones for the rest of the life. That’s NOT a bad thing.
@iDavey
Yes calling it a Google Phone would be much better. My point was that Android needs a brand recognition of some sort. When PC revolution started, Windows brand was a bigger selling point than IBM, HP, Packard Bell or all other manufacturers. Right now it seems HTC, Samsung etc are what people are seeing before they realize it runs Google’s OS. As for tech people, I work in a IT company and half of the people don’t know what Android is. You can blame their inquisition, but that’s what I had experienced.
wishful thinking. because “me too” is not good enough.
android may do well, especially vs. WinMobile which is really stuck. but bear in mind that in about 5 years every phone of every kind will be a “smartphone” of some level that can run hopefully-decent-by-then apps. each platform will have thousands of apps, including all the good ones, tho not as much redundancy/junk as the iPhone due to its being first. actually with its existing huge global base Nokia and its by-then-sophisticated “open” Symbian platform ought to be #1. globally, people may be downloading a billion apps a week for all platforms by then.
Apple doesn’t care. as a hardware maker, just 5% of that global market would make it many, many billions of dollars. and by then their overall “ecosystem,” with the iPhone/Pod one key part, will have morphed into something a lot bigger than today. that’s what Apple cares about.
if Apple is still driving the technology/software equation like today, it will still have the “buzz” leadership in the field with the latest viral sensations. but Android could be the ubiquitous low-key alternative platform if it beats out WinMobile. Since it has no single hardware OEM champion, that is as good as it can get.
I’m open to Android being a great OS, and Java is obviously awesome, but as an iPhone App Developer I can tell you that I am concerned about device fragmentation in the Android market. From a software engineering point of view, it is NOT a good thing to have 20 different devices to code for, each with their own quirks. A developer will either have to make software that runs on the lowest common denominator meaning fewer features and lower quality, or will have to target a subset of the available devices.
Dear article writer,
The different hardwares for the same OS hurts development.
Dear TareX,
“The different hardwares for the same OS..” = PC/Windows OS
Same hardwares for same OS = Mac/OSX
Windows market share equals ~ 90%
OSX market share equals ~ 10%
This is about as good as it have ever looked for Apple since 1984. I’d say same hardwares for same OS hurts a little worse.
@skurtis
they can’t call it google phone because it got 3 different licensing options.
one of them does not need ANY connection to google or google services but its still android.
@TareX
so since pcs don’t got all the same hardware development works pretty bad for pcs and noone got a pc.
java suxxx
I live near an Apple store so I spent a lot of time playing with the iPhone. Along with its speed (newest iPhone), one thing I noticed that I like more than my G1 is the larger screen size of the iPhone. Make no mistake, there is a big difference between my G1’s 3.2″ screen size and the iPhone’s 3.5″ screen size. Otherwise, I think Android is better than the iPhone and its OS.
As soon as somebody releases a capacitive touchscreen Android phone with a 3.5″ or slightly larger screen, it will sell in the millions….and this will give Android a chance to pass Apple in the App Market when the developers see how many potential customers they will have.
The reason I don’t own an iPhone by the way, is that it’s monthly cost is more expensive than the G1.
One more thing.
Another thing I would like to mention is that I like T-Mobile. There service is very good in my area, and that is another thing keeping me from switching to AT&T.
First, irrespective of my critique of Android, I love Android and wish it succees by leaps and bounds. But that said, I believe wishful thinking alone is not enough. Apple has shown that even with inferior OS, it can more than make it up with a polished product, great marketing, and great App Store. Even if 50,000 of those apps are iFarts, it still leaves 15,000 usable apps and growing. Google has to come up with best tools, best store and best UI to catch up to Apple’s head start. Or else you’ll see continued fragmentation of OS and market. It has to be more than a hobby project for Google. This is no 1990s. Even six months is lot when you are up against Apple. Lightening speed is what we are talking about ! Google has the money. Does it have the will ? I am not so sure but will be glad to be proven wrong !
@nasredin > “java suxxx”
Yes it sucks so much that its the most popular language for enterprise development. Now go back under that rock.
I agree the android game has just begun…more phones and more carriers will boost its presence…oh,yea, Sprint so will others…why wouldn’t they? IPhones biggest issue is AT&T. Prepare to see android everywhere…sony walkmans…everywhere
I personally think “Android” has been very successful. It’s main set back from day one was “and still is” it’s hardware. Most people find the g1’s hardware unattractive. I don’t know about you but i think selling over 1.5 “Ugly” units is an incredible feet. Imagine if the g1 was released last October on hardware such as the touch pro 2 or touch HD.
With the better hardware and more choices coming this fall, android devices will surly outsell the iphone.
No matter how great the iphone is, it will eventually wear itself out as people turn
to “other comparable options” to differentiate themselves.
I start to dev on it, and it’s hard to believe how easy it is. The sdk and the documentation are really well done!
Not need a mac to dev, to learn an exotic language objective C etc..
Plus now the SDK integrates another part called NDK who make the SDK not more only Java, parts who need performance or that you want to import can now be written in C/C++.
Android market will be soon more populated than any other device.
Let the time come and you will see the “fashion based” popularity of the Iphone getting lower and lower.
Thanks google to make development so accessible !
(Lot’s of companies should do things like that, Nintendo, sony etc…)
Open source computing is continuously growing and will for its a slave-free world of technology!
I’m a Phandroid!
I’d love to buy a smartphone other than the iPhone, but I find myself starting to cave in.
I’ve been waiting for an Android phone (other than the G1) to appear in the US for quite some time now, and I’m about to give up. It’s all about the apps, and right now developers see that compared to the iPhone, the market share that the G1 has is negligible.
Unless some really good phones appear soon, I fear that Apple will already have too much momentum.
I really hope that doesn’t happen, because as a company, I have very little respect for Apple and heavy handed ways. The last thing we need in the cell phone market is Apple dominance.
Many of my friends have Nokia phones(either old or new ones), but none of them knows Symbian OS, does it mean Nokia phones have a smaller market share?
This is the problem with android: extremely powerful operating system (core, needs a lot of fleshing out) running on shit, ugly hardware, being sold in the biggest market (U.S.) on what is basically a small-fry mobile carrier here (I believe presently T-Mobile only offers 3g service in 3 U.S. cities). That’s pathetic. It’s small wonder so many g1, owners will admit that T-Mobile’s pricing is the only reason they haven’t gotten something else already. Throw in the fact they’re using an annoyingly detached java spin-off as the programming environment, on a crickety old IDE (most people use Eclipse, which is incredibly un-special), and you have a bunch of developers who are frustrated and latently angry with Google and they’re seemingly half-assed market, crippled with an ass-ton of shitty apps because outside of some nifty APIs, the android SDK is a fucking nightmare.
If you think programming for android is easier in any respect (other than monetarily) than iPhone’s solution, you obviously don’t know your way around a keyboard, so just shut up. Anyone who’s actually used Xcode knows that it’s the bee’s knees, regardless of the stupid Objective-C decision. But hey, it kicks Java’s ass. Android is the future, however, I think most programmers know that, so we stay patient, but if there are other developers out there I think they would agree that Google has made it really annoying for us so far. Those of you who are also iPhone developers know that developing for iPhone is dreamy, and their SDK is robust, feature-rich, organized, and WORKS FLAWLESSLY. THAT’s what Google needs to catch up on.
Oh, and android was constructed in a way that any application made for it will run seamlessly on any other machine that runs it. That’s part of what they’re talking about when they say android is a “non-traditional” Linux distribution, and is why android in fact seeks its open adoption. Therefore, about three people from above I can remember are fucking morons for positing that there’s some ind of problem with not having controlled hardware on android. RESEARCH. It all comes back to the money, people. The money is in the markets. iPhone’s market is fucking fantastic and error-free. Android’s not so much.
That being said, Viva la Android!
I need to upgrade in 2 months from my AT&T IPhone 2G. I really want to get an Android phone, but in the US by that time, the best Android phone out will only be the myTouch. Heck even the Hero won’t be out till the end of 2009 and at that its hardware is probably the same or a tiny step below the Iphone 3GS. My 2G is slow, to go to the 3GS would be tremendous. Its going to be hard for me not to just switch right now to 3GS and lock in for another 2 years.
Get off your butt google and you hardware manufacturers of android phones. If someone like me who really wants to get an Android phone, is still going to get an Iphone because you guys are so slow and incompetent with rolling out Android phones and OS to at least match Apple, then what chance do you stand to capture the general market who could care less or even know what kind of OS runs under the phone?
I really want in Android phone, but its just too easy to upgrade to the Iphone 3GS right now from sucky 2G. You’re putting out inferior hardware (mytouch is just the magic rebranded!) to apple months later!! That sucks!!!
I hate apple but you give me almost no choice but to upgrade to the 3GS and become further enslaved to Apple.
I dont see a decent Android phone better than 3GS coming out in US till maybe spring 2010. The Hero only matches the 3GS, months later (not even out yet).
Well, HTC aside, there are neat hardwares with Android on top coming.
And honestly, with the SDK for android, it doesnt seem too bad to make it work on more than a few handsets.
Myself, Im longing for an android phone without that ridiculus, worthless trackball. >..<
I really like the devkit for the android, and sooner or later I might actually have an app that others might have an interrest in. Heh.
Two points prevent Android to become successful:
1. System:
Whoever can compare Android on actual hardware with the newest iPhone OS has to admit: Android is sllloooowwww. It lacks of memory and graphic power (which is among others essential for the touch UI). Android stutters while iPhone flows. Apps on Android stay open in the background, causing the typical Windows Mobile syndrome of system obstruction. A lot of task and memory managers on Android market show this weakness.
2. Android market:
Android market is fully available (i.e. paid apps) only in a handful of countries. Most users, which are buying Android hardware at the moment, become frustrated. Google has choosen a complicated shop model, obviously, resulting in leaving moust countries on earth without full access to the shop!
And paid app protecion is really bad: root your Android phone and you have access to all the “copy protected” apps. Distribute them freely on internet. Wow…
Seeing this I wonder how some of the posts here can be so positive. :-/
@grrowl – Well, as you’ve read on the internet and everywhere else. You will notice that Android is in its infancy stage and is brewing to become something big REALLY big. Unlike the iPhone fad! By the end of this year Android will be running on 18 devices! And as far as multi-tasking which the iphone is NOT capable of doing, does not mean the Android device running multi programs will be slow. No No No, this is just the beginning my friend.
As far as the Android Market is concered imaging having 3 phones with 65,000 apps, and having 18 – 25 phones with an estimate of 1,000,000 apps . Now, which do you think the developers will flock too?
A lot of countries don’t have Apple stores so worldwide, the iPhone is missing out on a big chunk of the market. Their distribution system is pretty closed to the emerging countries.
A few years ago, everybody got an iPod. Then they all broke down, while those of us who had got a Creative MP3 player for example were still happily using them. Most people are replacing their no-longer working iPod with an MP3 player from another brand. I’ve seen it around me. I was the only one not to have an iPod, now everybody around me has gone with another brand, be it Creative or Sony or some other brand. Same will happen with the iPhone.
Apple is great at creating a hype around a new technology but their stuff is overpriced and technically inferior – people get blinded by the shiny plastic at first then they realise they could have a much better machine for the same amount. Apple runs a membership club and as a company, they do very well by serving their overpriced 5-10% niche. So Apple will still make a lot of money from the iPhone but they will no longer dominate the smart phone market.
As a developer, Android is a dream. Java, an Eclipse plugin, a good emulator and great documentation! I know many developers like myself who stayed away from the iPhone because we refused to get a Mac for development when we already have a very good PC that fulfills all our requirements. Android doesn’t force developers to buy a certain product and is therefore a much more attractive option.
In reply to the first poster…
Looks like every carrier will have android…. Oh wait except ATT… They have all their eggs in one basket… I bet they get android as soon as exclusivity with Apple ends.
Another problem is that Android Market is NOT available to any Android phone, but only on those Google likes. And i’m not talking about paid aps not available, but the whole Market. So pretty soon there will be a lot of cheap and weird phones running Android, but with no market. Google is missing a lot of clients because of that.
Also, if you only let some clients to use your market, you don’t get to brag about the “openness” of the market.
idd, but! if u have an andriod, the market sucks ass! the apps are like coomodore 64 or wathever games, bad graphic and for the most small, but on Iphone the games got atleast some qulity…
Hi. I just wanted to update some of the things that the editor never mentioned. It seems quite fair to argue that Android market will catch up the app store in matter of times in short glance, but the quality of the consumers also vary significantly.
Carriers are handing out the Android OS installed smartphone just like the other they did, and nearly half of them are crap, and nearly half of the consumers don’t even want the complexity, which also includes Android market and 3rd party application.
It’s almost same as that glory of iPod will disappear in matter of time, no one really believes that. After all, I haven’t seen people who call MP3 players, the device plays MP3 format music files, but rather iPod.