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posted by CoolHand on Thursday May 28 2015, @10:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the fine-line dept.

Farhad Manjoo writes in the NYT that with over one billion devices sold in 2014 Android is the most popular operating system in the world by far, but that doesn't mean it's a financial success for Google. Apple vacuumed up nearly 90 percent of the profits in the smartphone business which prompts a troubling question for Android and for Google: How will the search company — or anyone else, for that matter — ever make much money from Android. First the good news: The fact that Google does not charge for Android, and that few phone manufacturers are extracting much of a profit from Android devices, means that much of the globe now enjoys decent smartphones and online services for low prices. But while Google makes most of its revenue from advertising, Android has so far been an ad dud compared with Apple's iOS, whose users tend to have more money and spend a lot more time on their phones (and are, thus, more valuable to advertisers). Because Google pays billions to Apple to make its search engine the default search provider for iOS devices, the company collects much more from ads placed on Apple devices than from ads on Android devices.

The final threat for Google's Android may be the most pernicious: What if a significant number of the people who adopted Android as their first smartphone move on to something else as they become power users? In Apple's last two earnings calls, Tim Cook reported that the "majority" of those who switched to iPhone had owned a smartphone running Android. Apple has not specified the rate of switching, but a survey found that 16 percent of people who bought the latest iPhones previously owned Android devices; in China, that rate was 29 percent. For Google, this may not be terrible news in the short run. If Google already makes more from ads on iOS than Android, growth in iOS might actually be good for Google's bottom line. Still, in the long run, the rise of Android switching sets up a terrible path for Google — losing the high-end of the smartphone market to the iPhone, while the low end is under greater threat from noncooperative Android players like Cyanogen which has a chance to snag as many as 1 billion handsets. Android has always been a tricky strategy concludes Manjoo; now, after finding huge success, it seems only to be getting even trickier.


[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @03:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @03:15PM (#189690)

    The fact that Google does not charge for operating system, and that few phone manufacturers are extracting much of a profit from Android devices, means that much of the globe now enjoys decent smartphones and online services for low prices.

    Your definition of "decent" and "low prices" leave something to be desired.

    I think Android is horrible crap. It's porting a desktop paradigm to a smartphone form factor. Horribly ill-conceived. It's permission system is shambles, you either accept all or deny all what an application demands (and no, "but but CM" is not an excuse, we're talking Android here)
    If you briefly set aside that Windows Phone is made by MSFT and consider it just on technical grounds, you'll quickly find that it is actually superior to Android (although I give you that the permission system is also horribly broken).

    The price you pay for these 'decent' online services is not low, in fact, it is very high. It isn't USD you pay mind you, you pay with your privacy, which I value at an incredibly large amount of USDs.

    All in all, I wouldn't be sadned by a quick and horrible demise of Android. I think the world would be better off without it in fact.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @09:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @09:00PM (#189840)

    Comparing Windows Phone and Android on technical grounds then Android comes out miles ahead for me, because I greatly value Android being largely open source. While I don't look at or hack the source myself, others do and I benefit from it.

    I don't think Android permissions is horribly broken, at least not at its core. It is just how they Google choose to let the user handle permissions that is broken, they could fix it, but they don't seem to want to. However, because of it being open source, great things are possible for real power users, like the Xposed framework, and particularly relevant here is the XPrivacy Xposed module that allows me to manage app permissions on an incredibly fine level, not just the groups of permissions like what you are presented with when you install apps.

    There are lots of things I don't like about Android, but if you want a relatively open platform with decent app support, then there isn't really any other option.

    And can you explain how Android is porting a desktop paradigm to a mobile device? I just don't get that comment, Android makes for a horrible desktop UI, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.