Articles about iPhone vs Android

My beloved iPhone 5 recently disappeared -- lost or stolen doesn't matter. Gone is gone. Verizon ticks me off; the warranty is supposed to get me a new one for $100 deductible. But no! VZW wants me to pay full subsidized price again! So, I do what anybody would; I fire Big Red!!!

I go for cost savings and switch to T-Mobile, figuring to buy the top-of-the-line geek Android toy and sell -- or better, trade -- it. I assume the Samsung Galaxy S III is top-geek merchandise but instead T-Mo pushes me towards the Galaxy Note II. What a deal online -- $200. I immediately list it on Craigslist, looking to trade for iPhone 5. To my surprise I get multiple offers. I mean, who as a sane person would want that deal?

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ChangeWave has new data out today showing an expected, but dramatic, decline in iPhone buying intentions over the next 90 days and unexpected jump for Samsung smartphones -- two models particularly: Galaxy S III and Note II. One-half of US consumers say they'll buy Apple's handset, but that's down from 71 percent three months earlier. Interest in the South Korean manufacturer's devices surged to 21 percent from 13 percent during the same time frame.

"Consumer buying intent for Samsung smartphones has been extraordinary to start the year", Paul Carton, ChangeWave's vice president of research, says. "Considering the Galaxy S III has been out for several months we'd normally expect a slowdown by now, but it’s still red hot. We’re also seeing strong interest in Samsung’s large-screen phone -- the Galaxy Note II. Super-sized smartphones are taking the industry by storm in 2013". Among those planning to buy a Samsung smartphone, 69 percent say Galaxy S3 and 23 percent Note II.

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I can see only one good reason to choose iPhone 5 over Nexus 4: The LG-manufactured mobile is sold out, and you can't wait. For the patient, Google's fourth-generation stock Android delivers rewarding experience. The new Nexus is the smartphone to buy this holiday season -- if you can find one.

Two reasons stand in iPhone 5's favor, neither is good, just necessary for some people: Your carrier -- for example, Sprint and Verizon in the United States -- isn't supported (Nexus 4 is GSM/HSPA+), or you bought heap loads of apps from Apple and don't want to lose your investment. I feel your pain, but offer no pity. Nexus 4 is exceptional.

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Two months ago, I declared Android winner in the smartphone wars. The victory is now broader, in a total route of all competing operating systems and in process driving down iOS market share. That's right, after more than five years of near-constant growth, Apple's platform retreats before the Android Army.

Android's global smartphone OS share rose a stunning 19.9 points year over year in third quarter, according to Gartner. That's to 72.4 percent, up from 52.5 percent. Meanwhile iOS fell to 13.9 percent from 15 percent.

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Sometimes, we don't agree on what's the best approach to stories. Colleague Mihaita Bamburic and I looked at the same Strategy Analytics numbers but reach different takeaways. He focuses on Samsung Galaxy S III shipments surpassing iPhone 4S during Q3. I latch on to something else: S3 shipments tripling in one quarter.

Samsung started selling S3 internationally on May 29 -- 28 countries to start, with expansion planned to 147 locales from 297 cellular carriers. The smartphone soft launched in the United States on June 21. According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung shipped 5.4 million Galaxy S IIIs during second quarter, more than tripling to 18 million in Q3. That's a helluva change, even for a new product shipping first time into the sales channel.

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Android's ascension over iPhone reached the figurative stratosphere during third quarter, according to IDC. Seventy-five percent of smartphones shipped with the operating system -- that's up from 57.5 percent a year earlier. By comparison, iOS nudged up to 14.9 percent, from 13.8 percent. That's right, little more than 1 percent. There's a reason that in September I asserted "Android wins the smartphone wars". There's certain appropriateness to IDC releasing the data on Day of the Dead.

Out of fairness to Apple, iPhone unit volumes rose considerably more, 57.3 percent, than market share reflects -- 26.9 million units compared to 17.1 million a year earlier. Android shipments rose 91.5 percent; 136 million, compared to 71 million in Q3 2011. Still, Android volumes in the quarter exceeded that for all smartphones in 2007. My how the market has changed.

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Just in case you were thinking it was all about the iPad mini and Surface tablets at the moment, along comes Google with a new Nexus range. The company had planned to make a big announcement in New York today, stealing some of the thunder from Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 launch, but Hurricane Sandy decided to put the kibosh on that (how ironic), so instead the search giant has had to make do with a blog post instead.

There are actually three Nexus devices being announced today, the Nexus 4 smartphone, the new Nexus 7 tablet (which my colleague Joe Wilcox talked about here) and the bigger Nexus 10 -- Google’s 10.1-inch answer to the Apple iPad.

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Uh-oh. While Apple was launching all its new and improved products yesterday, bad news brewed in the background. I just hope the company hasn’t pre-emptively spent any of the $1.05 billion it was awarded from Samsung recently, because the US Patent and Trademark Office has just ruled that 20 patents relating to overscroll technology (the bounce effect that happens when you scroll beyond the edge of an image or document) are invalid, and that could spell problems for the Cupertino, Calif.-based corporation.

According to Groklaw, "the notorious rubber-band patent [Apple's] been going after Android with, has just been tentatively rejected by the USPTO on re-examination. Apple has two months, until December 15, 2012, to respond and try to save it".

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In a move appropriate for another two-party presidential election season, there is now little room for three dominant smartphone operating systems. The US market is now decisively consolidated around just two, Apple and Google platforms, as rivals -- including BlackBerry and Windows Phone -- make brisk retreats.

For the three months ended in August, Android and iOS had combined 86.9 percent smartphone subscriber share -- that's up from 82.8 percent at the end of May, according to comScore. August 2011: 71 percent. As combined share approaches 90 percent, a third-party contender looks less likely. Both potential candidates lost share during the three months, all gobbled up by the leaders.

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Some companies really know how to maximize marketing, and drive up their share price in the process. In March, Apple used a countdown clock to boast about 25 billion App Store downloads. Google's mobile store reached the same number this week, announced with little fanfare today.

Apple shares traded for about $531 then, but rose sharply following the app milestone and thereafter fairly consistently in the wake of a series of well-marketing managed announcements or product releases, topping $700 this month. There are daily reports across the InterWebs about record share price. Meanwhile, more meager marketer Google, which share price also flies record high this month -- above Apple, at $764.89 peak -- is largely ignored. Perhaps pro-Apple bias contributes to the silence? Whatever, Google has big numbers of its own.

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I love these informal drop tests. They're unscientific (remember Chaos Theory, anyone?) but still give a glimpse of what to expect in real-world situations. Android Authority conducts one of the first, taking advantage of global time zones and iPhone 5 launching in Hong Kong long before the lines seriously queued in the United States today.

Darcy LaCouvee drops iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S III from three different heights, in what he calls typical scenarios: pulling from the pocket, about four feet high (when lifting to ear) and from the head (here about 5 foot 6 inches). For anyone considering either of these flagship smartphones, damage from drops is a serious consideration. Because most carriers subsidize purchase prices, replacement costs can be considerably higher -- more like $600 instead of the original $200, for example.

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In October 2009, I explained why "Apple cannot win the smartphone wars". That was just a year after Google launched the first Android handset, the G1, on T-Mobile and days after Verizon debuted the hugely-successful Motorola Droid. By end of that year, Android had paltry 3.9 percent smartphone sales share, according to Gartner. My prediction drew loads of criticism from the Apple Fan Club of bloggers, journalists and other writers.

Fast-forward to second quarter 2012 and Android's global sales share is 64.1 percent for all phones, not just smart ones. iOS: 18.8 percent. My how times change. Increasingly, Android and iOS look exactly like Windows and Mac OS in the 1980s and 1990s, as I predicted would be the case.

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Let’s be honest, iPhone 5 is evolutionary, not revolutionary. It’s a clear improvement over the previous model but isn’t a huge leap forward, and in some places it’s just playing catch-up with rival devices.

While my colleague Mihaita Bamburic points out the downsides of the new handset, I’d highlight areas where it shines.

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I’ve been told the new faster-bigger-but-lighter-and-thinner iPhone 5 has a Thunderbolt interface. The press has correctly picked up on the fact the cables and connectors are different. They haven’t, however, figured out Thunderbolt is not USB.  I guess we can expect the next round of iPads to use Thunderbolt too.

If it is Thunderbolt (I haven’t been able to confirm) you have to wonder why? In one sense this may just be Apple wagging the market because it can, but what if they really need a 10 gigabit-per-second interface for something? And what could that something be?

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Finally, someone is brave enough to give iPhone 5 a big reality check. Who better than Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis?

"Ahead of the expected launch of the iPhone 5", he says, "there is a growing expectation that this release will achieve the equivalent blowout sales success that the iPhone 4s enjoyed; however, a careful review of the sales history reveals that, while the new iPhone may be a gigantic success around the world, the inevitability of similar success in the US is not quite so pre-determined".

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