This past holiday season it was quite evident that the Amazon Kindle Fire was incredibly successful, especially for Amazon. But what does that success mean for Google? It may not mean as much as you would think and you may know why if you own the Kindle Fire. Look though your Kindle Fires apps, what is missing that all Android phones have? That’s right, the Android Marketplace. Amazon essentially gutted out the Marketplace and put their own in its place. Which means one thing for Google, less profit.
Jan 26
Dec 07
Looks like Google is celebrating its ten Billionth download by offering several apps and games for 10 cents! I’m a big fan of Minecraft and seeing it go for ten cents made it an instant buy for me! Google’s Android has seen enormous growth this past year which is evident in it’s download frequency. This past year, almost every month, Android Marketplace has seen a 1 billion increase in downloads. That is incredibly impressive considering Apple iPhone, which has been around considerably longer, reached 15 billion this past summer.
Nov 30
Well well, it seems you don’t have to wonder into your local wireless providers store to give Windows Phone 7 OS a try. If you have an Android or Apple iPhone handy you can give Windows phone OS a try by downloading an emulator that does a pretty good job at simulating the new operation system Windows has been touting the last few months. Continue reading »
Sep 26
Years ago Blackberry used to be “the Cadillac of smart phones”. The iPhone and Android didn’t exist in a time when CEO’s and VPs all owned Blackberrys. Smart phone was synonymous with wealth and business. Though times have changed, and the smart phone market is more mainstream, Blackberry still holds the wealthy mantel. According to a survey done by Prosper Mobile Insights, Blackberry is favored among the wealthy at 11.9%, which is about .4% higher than iPhone and a whopping 4.1% higher than the Android. But what is “wealthy” to PMI? According to them, anyone making over $150,000 a year. Perhaps that’s not what some consider wealthy, but it’s certainly very comfortable.
The survey didn’t stop there though. They checked several other income brackets, including anyone making $100,000 to $149,000. In that pay grade the favorites stay close to the same, but it has become evident that the Blackberry is losing some of their comfortable ground. The lower the income bracket the more the iPhone takes over the lead and Android begins creeping up to the Blackberry. People making between $75,000 to $99,000 favor the iPhone at 19.6%, with Blackberry at 18.7% and the Android right behind the Blackberry at 18.2%.
But where the iPhone begins the gain, so does the Android. Google’s Android phones have one advantage over iPhone, which is they offer their operating system on a wide variety of phones and are now available on all major carriers. With this in mind, more companies are able to create a wide variety of prices in their phones, which allow for more affordable phones for the middle to lower class. So when we get below $74,000 a year, Google’s Android begins to dominate. But what else makes the Blackberry lose favor with the middle to lower class?
Games. Games are much easier to play with a touch screen, like everyone’s favorite Angry Birds, as oppose to Blackberry’s staple ball navigation. Not to say Blackberry phones aren’t worth it anymore. They are excellent business phones and can surf the internet just as well as the competition. They even dabble in the touch screen world, most notably with the Storm and Storm 2. But their strong point, and stereotype, will almost certainly always be in business. Even their old commercials played on this stereotype of the business suit go getters sending emails and conference calls on the go.
Blackberry doesn’t just lose out on games though. According to the survey 85% of iPhone users and 84% of Android users claim they download apps on their phones, while Blackberry users are at a low 59.9%. Does this mean there are less apps on the Blackberry? Probably not, and those numbers may have more to do with what the typical Blackberry user looks for in their phone. Blackberrys tend to be business ready right out of the box, which is enough for anyone using it as a business device. iPhone and Android play heavily on their apps, almost exclusively advertising apps as the reason to purchase their products.
So what does this survey really mean? Besides the obvious “times are changing”, the survey shows that competition on the smartphone market is looking good. With three major companies vying for the top spot we can expect nothing but improvements in both technology and choices. When one company innovates the other responds. Though Blackberry is just beginning to really kick start their competition (they have been rather comfortable at the top for some time) we should expect some surprising things around the horizon.
The iPhone, Blackberry, Android phones and more are all available at thebluedot.net!
May 11
The official results are in, and the first quarter sales figures for 2010 are significantly in favor of Google’s Android smart phone. The war has waged for quite some time between Apple’s iPhone–with apps that pale in comparison to the amount of hype backing it up–and Google’s Android which has dedicated its operating system to various phone models and carriers across the board.
The iPhone, as many of you know, is paired only with AT&T service–and while Apple pushes its weight around the market, it rests firmly in the corner where only AT&T users and Mac Geeks dwell.
AT&T is big–really big. But Verizon is much bigger. You know those “coverage maps” you see in all the ‘Verizon VS AT&T‘ commercials? Those attempt to illustrate a whopping 92.8% of Verizon’s customers enjoying a relatively limitless wireless coverage zone.
iPhone’s biggest claim to fame is the App Store, featuring obscene numbers of user and professionally created applications for just about everything you’d ever want to do–from grocery shopping, to making fart-noises on the bus. The Google Android is gaining speed, however. They’re up to a healthy 50,000 applications and counting–and I believe they’ve even hosted their own fart-noise apps, so…good news there!
Because of Verizon’s dominant network, they have become a huge sponsor of Google’s Android–providing them with lots of advertising and marketing funds.
The last–and probably most important–factor that pushes the Android ahead is the pricing. Where the average price for a smart phone in 2010 is around $599 (retail price), the top-tier iPhones can be as pricey as $999 (used iphones for less than $200 and cheap droid phones). Because Google has the freedom to pick and choose its carriers and hosts models in varying price ranges, they have the potential to dominate every market.
The Android’s sales have outfoxed the iPhone, but not by much. With the first quarter percentages for the Android being 28%, and the iPhone’s being 21%, it is still a close race…but it is still only a race for 2nd place.
It should be no surprise that Reasearch in Motion’s Blackberry is still king of the smart phones with a first quarter sales rate of 36 percent. Across the board, new and refurbished Blackberrys make a huge impact on smart phone sales. They are efficient, inexpensive, and part of the largest networks in the country.
So, for now, Blackberry watches as Google and Apple duke it out–but there’s a lot more time left in 2010–and something tells me that the iPad won’t be the last tech gadget people are talking about this year.
Sources: Yahoo! Finance | ARS Technica | Android Community | Boy Genius Report
–Alex
