If you're wondering why Google and the Open Handset Alliance currently beats Apple in the mobile world, we give you the answer inside.
Let's say Apple initiated serious iPhone development in 2005, as a side project to the iPad development. That would make it five years ago since Apple started working on a cell phone. From a bird perspective, the iPhone was kind of the consumer world's answer to the corporate world's BlackBerry, in the sense that they both focused on accomplishing a few tasks for their respective target markets.
Once the iPhone's entertainment sibling, the iPod touch, proved to be a success, we truly believed that it would only lead to stronger iPhone sales down the road. However, Apple couldn't wait to see kids and teenagers grow older in order to boost iPhone sales sometime in the future. Rather quickly, the company also started working hard and closely with enterprises to facilitate enterprise usage. The introduction of a strictly regulated, on-board App Store has also proved to be a success (Apple didn't invent the app store - they integrated and regulated the concept in a way competitors had feared to do).
Then, Android all of a sudden rose from nowhere in Q2 2010 and outperformed Apple in terms of smartphone sales. Or, Android didn't really come from nowhere if you follow the mobile industry relatively closely though.
The first clue was Motorola's new consumer smartphone effort, which was announced very early. The second clue was that HTC acquired a design firm in Apple's backyard to better cater to consumers. The third clue was Verizon Wireless' announcement towards openness to better work with other industry players to deliver cheaper as well as free services and content. The fourth clue was the army of low-priced Android handsets. The fifth clue appeared when Samsung announced that it would start using high-end components in U.S. carrier smartphones rather than solely sell them to Apple. The sixth, and most recent, clue is currently revealing itself: tiered data plans as well as prepaid data plans.
The sum of the clues above basically tells us one thing: Apple has no chance to survive in the smartphone world - no chance whatsoever. But we guess that's why Apple has never had big smartphone ambitions. We've said it in the past, and we'll say it again, Apple's ambitions are in the entertainment world. If you read our review of the iPhone 4, we'll tell you that we can safely recommend it as an entertainment device, but as a smartphone, you may find better options out there.
And that's why Google currently beats Apple. Google and the Open Handset Alliance are rapidly reforming the smartphone world, while Apple is barely at the beginning of its entertainment effort. They'll simply need to wait until all those kids and teenagers with iPod touch devices grow older after all, though there's a new challenge arising now: Microsoft. At the end of the day, we believe Microsoft and Apple will ultimately fight for the same audience, while the smartphone world will only continue to grow on its own, new term: Openness (think free map service vs. $10/month map service, smaller but independent services etc. – ironically, many of which are now forcing themselves on-board the iPhone – and we can all only wonder why…).
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