Its been many months since my last posting speculating on the near future of Google's Android. Well a lot has happened.
This summary of a number of other articles I feel indicate that Android is quickly going to emerge as a significant smart phone platform.. It is an open source design from the get go although I think I would prefer my Android phone's version to be directly supported by Google rather than those out there that may try to fragment its normal footprint. Indeed we need competition but too much fragments the opportunity for the developers who provide all the "apps" that fuel your always with you, always on, always connected communications thingie...
But be aware, these smartphone statistics can really be a fools quest. Primarily what is going on world-wide is not what is happening in the US particularly. Why, well the US got off to a rather slow start as compared to Europe or the Far East. It is also more fragmented in how 3G has arrived. As such its mixture of smartphones is far different that the rest of the world's at this time. But that too is changing given the acceration of the US adoption and leadership in touch-based phone desigs: iPhone, Droid, RIM, and others.
Fall 2009 BIG Four Worldwide Smartphone Players
Nokia 39%
RIM 20%
Apple 17%
HTC 5%
Fall 2009 BIG Four US Smartphone Players
RIM 41%
Apple 25%
Microsoft 19%
Palm 7.8
SO one of the all important topics is not just how many handsets were made or sold, but the actual "apps" traffic and its related economy that results in after-sales revenues. Apple is the biggest dog at the moment with its . But I will speculate that if the emereging Android handsets have some reasonable consistency in design and function, many of the sweetest cherries on Apple's App-store will be snarfed up in the Android community.
Perhaps the biggest Android bombshell of the year came on the eve of the CTIA Wireless IT & entertainment conference, when Verizon Wireless locked arms with Google. That partnership has produced two phones so far: the Motorola Droid and the HTC Droid Eris. The year ended with fresh speculation that Google would be launching its "own" Android phone, free from carrier constraints, though it is unclear whether this will be a major disruption or just another new Android phone.
Why it was significant: It's important to put all of the buzz around Android in perspective. It is not entirely surprising that Strategy Analytics predicted a 900 percent growth rate for the operating system in 2009, given that there were so few Android phones on the market at the beginning of this year. Nonetheless, the evolution of Android has been remarkable. By courting numerous carrier and handset OEM partners, Google has broadened the reach of its open-source Android effort and positioned itself for growth at a time when more consumers are shifting from feature phones to smartphones with data plans. It remains to be seen though how Google's rumored Nexus One phone fits into the company's overall wireless effort. The device could represent a major strategy shift for the Internet search giant, or just the latest flagship Android phone. Whatever happens with the "Google phone," it's clear that Google's phone ambitions took off this year.
Read more: http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/2009-year-review-android-gains-mainstream-acceptance/2009-12-15#ixzz0aop0d6Mn
Citing growing smartphone adoption--sales grew 20 percent this year--as well as the proliferation of app stores behind the surge, ABI anticipates the iPhone will remain the leading platform for mobile software, although its share of the overall application market will contract during the latter stages of the forecast period--the forecast declares Android will benefit most from the upcoming boom, increasing from 11 percent of total application downloads this year to 23 percent five years from now. "This rapid growth is driven by the mass adoption of the Android OS by both vendors and consumers from 2009 onwards," says ABI wireless research associate Bhavya Khanna in a prepared statement. "There are now more than 14 phones that run the Android OS, and many more will launch in 2010. This, coupled with the rollout of application stores from both smartphone vendors and network operators, will see the iPhone's share of the total market shrink between 2010 and 2014
Read more: http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/story/mobile-app-downloads-forecast-reach-5-billion-2014/2009-12-21#ixzz0aoY7DHSj
And my WAG for Estimated Smartphone or OSed mobiles versus all other mobile phones New and Replacement Inventory in the US in 2009
According to the Device Dashboard, a new online tool providing data about the relative number of active devices running a given version of Android, 54.2 percent of smartphones currently run Android 1.6, 27.7 percent run Android 1.5 and 14.8 percent run 2.0.1. (Android 2.0 runs on 2.9 percent of devices, and 1.1 runs on just 0.3 percent.) But with so many new Android devices in all shapes and sizes expected in 2010, the question isn't whether the platform will grow too big for developers to ignore--it's whether it will grow too big for them to manage.
In November 2009 AdMob estimated the US distribution of the Android handsets was approximately:
HTC Dream 36%
Motorola Droid 24%
HTC M<agic 21%
HTC Hero 8%
Motorola CLIQ 6%
Other 5%
Google's Internal Devlopement handset - Android 2.1 with:
Digital compass, accelerometer, haptic feedback, proximity sensor, light sensor
Nexus One, the Google Phone, the specs:
- Display: 3.7-inch Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) with 800 x 480 pixel
format - Camera: 5 megapixel, mechanical autofocus, LED flash, geotagging
- Memory: 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, comes with 4GB microSD, expandable to
32GB - Network: HSPA 900/1700/2100 (7.2Mbps down, 2Mbps up)
- Wireless: WiFi ABGN, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, A2DP, AGPS
- Connectivity: 3.5mm 4-connector stereo headset jack, micro-USB
- OS: Android 2.1
- CPU: 1GHz Qualcomm QSD 8250
- Dimensions: 119 x 59.8 x 11.5mm
- Weight: 130g with battery; 100g without battery
- Battery: 1400 mAh
- Other: Digital compass, accelerometer, haptic feedback, proximity sensor,
light sensor
The network spec means that 3G is a go on T-Mobile but not on AT&T; only
EDGE on AT&T. Google will be making the Nexus One available to only those
who are invited, by the company. But there is also hope that T-Mobile will be
selling the Nexus One directly to anyone who wants one. When is anyone’s guess.
Source: Engadget
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