Android or iPhone? Wrong Question

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A great blog on iPhone and Android! Thanks for posting this!

Interesting… albeit I suspect Apple wants to be king in the smartphone market or the “Microsoft” of it.

Yes its 100% true. Android is giving an iphone like experience to the masses who prefer to pay 1/4 th price to get similar or same applications for ther phone. I also chose android because in India iphone is still a luxury that only few can own. But given the features of android, its impossible for any other platform to compete in India, including symbian, microsoft and crippled java

so… android is a mass-market only OS? not high end, huh?

i think you need to re-think your, “see your competitors catching up to you in the race so you declare you were never in it it in the first place” arguement.

http://www.phonedog.com/videos/motorola-atrix-4g-hands-on/

Great analysis!!
made some good strides for openness and data portability. Google is definitely in a strong position to revolutionize the mobile phone

Great analysis!! My guess is apple did not realize how big a game changer the iphone OS was and entered into a long term contract with ATT. Lets see what Steve Jobs does in the near future.. its heating up

i have a iphone and my freind has an android but we keep arguing which is better but i am sure iphone is as it has better touch and is totaly cooler

Although phone features and price are important, it will be the ecosystem surrounding the phone that will ultimately dictate the outcome of the Apple/Android slugfest. The ecosystem is composed of many things:

1) A copious source of easy-to-access content (e.g. music, videos, educational material, info, etc)

2) An electronic commerce platform/relationship(e.g. an easy/safe/secure way to buy things while mobile)

3) A repository of innovative solutions (e.g. a rich/open pool of high-quality smartphone app’s)

4) Access to one’s own information (e.g. at a desktop, at the enterprise and/or in the cloud)

5) Seamless access to fast, broadband data networks (e.g. 3G, 4G and Wifi)

While the capabilities and features of the growing cadre of Android-based phones are impressive, the ecosystem surrounding these phones is far less uniform, polished and integrated than that of Apple. Google and its partners simply lack the ease and consistent user experience that is offered by Apple and iTunes… particularly for the technophobe. Buying content or apps from iTunes is an easy, seamless and understandable process. This is much less so for Android-based phones. The commerce relationship built over seven years between Apple and its iPod and iPhone users give Apple a clear legg up. And applications… sure Google has apps, but it is clearly apparent that their affinity for openness has allowed some pretty rough-looking apps to get into the party. This will ultimately dilute the confidence of Android users as they compare their more rough-looking apps to the more polished-looking app’s available from Apple’s developers. In terms of personal information management, Apple flatly provides users with more choice. After all, if you can’t store and access your personal information where you want it, then you’re not going to play. Finally, since Apple appears able to call the shots with just one carrier (AT&T in the US), a developer can have confidence that every phone will be equipped with an unlimited data plan. This is both less predictable or understandable with the growing pool of Android devices and carriers.

Don’t get me wrong, I whole heartedly believe that Android will be a powerful force in the burgeoning smartphone sector; however, Apple’s control of the ecosystem will make the iPhone a better bet for influencing how ordinary, non-technical people manager their lives. After all, it’s not just about having a cool phone, its about having a phone that has all of the component pieces required to positively influence one’s lifestyle and make one’s life easier. In the end, I believe this will dictate the winner of the Google/Apple handset battle and as of right now, I think Apple and the iPhone have it hands down.

very interesting, but wearying to see statements like this:

“This price insensitive user demands the very best experience they can possibly have and this is still the iPhone.”

This simply cannot be stated as established fact, not for a quite some time. I use Blackberries, iPhones, and Android regularly in my profession.. Switching between Apps in iPhone is a pain. Dealing with push notification is a pain.

Use an android for any amount of time and you’ll realize its just a tiny little computer with a Desktop. Apple seriously has some work to do. Android phones are the sensory extensions of the distributed semantic networked intelligence of Google.

I confess this is scary. The iPhone is fun, but scary wins. And what networked intelligence gets fed more by the iPhone itself?

I completely agree with the main points of this post. But the headline seems off-base, at least from the perspective of an entrepreneur deciding where spend their precious cycles. “iPhone or Android?” is exactly the question they have to ask and answer. While iPhone has a clear installed base advantage, the momentum, breadth of coming headsets, superior business model (at least from the perspective of gaining market share), and easier/faster app approval process, are increasingly pointing to Android being the rational first choice for app developers.

Bill – I was hoping you would go into the FCC requirements on non-locked phones when using the LTE technology in the 700MHz frequency spectrum. This is where Google really but the dagger into the Apple.

Good points, I think I will definitely subscribe! I’ll go and read some more! What do you see the future of this being?

I like the article. Think back to the days when Apple ruled the personal computer roost with the Macintosh then, inexplicably, refused to license the operating system. Result: Microsoft had room to gobble up market share with a then much inferior OS. Apple stayed the course at the high end of the market. I see a parallel here again with iPhone.

An interesting post, for sure, and no doubt a future HBS case study. Many commentators have recognized the margin-focused strategy of Apple vs the scale-focused approach favoured by Microsoft & now Google. In the developed world, Apple will survive as a leader, but this will be at the expense of its developing-market leadership, where an Android-familiar mass market will throw up a plethora of Android-focused apps.
The post is US-biased in its focus on a single carrier, in AT&T, but in the equally large, more sophisticated European market, Apple has learnt to move away from single-sourcing (O2 in the UK) to multiple-sourcing (Orange & now Vodafone have been invited to the party!). Don’t underestimate the Apple!

But what isn’t explained is that you MUST change to a very specific rate plan, and if you have a multi-line family or corporate plan, you’re out of luck and must pay the full price, even if you’re otherwise eligible for a fully discounted upgrade for any other phone! This is a shady practice and must be changed. Sign the petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/nexusone/petition.html

YOUR BLOG IS SO INTERESTING

very interesting. I would have both cell phone
if have enough money

very interesting. But kind of think that your thesis is based on price disparity between the two — and I just don’t see it (at least not to the extent that you propose will bifurcate the market). So does that mean your argument falls apart?

Thanks Bill, an excellent, unbiased and carefully explained analysis of the market – which is a rare occurrence amidst the background noise and rival doctrines of the churches of Apple and Google.

A very thoughtful analysis. Having worked at T-Mobile on the launch of the first Android device, the T-Mobile G1 and at Apple on the Online Store team, I have seen both companies operate. I would add to your above comments this perspective: Apple makes hardware with skills and precision throughout design, engineering and the supply chain that Google does not possess nor express any interest in developing. Quite the opposite. That part of the overall business model is hugely impactful. Paralleling Microsoft’s evolution, Andy Rubin today lamented that backwards compatibility between the hardware and software for mobile phones would stall innovation. Yet Nexus One is really only optimized to run fully on the T-Mobile network in the US. Rubin further compared the Nexus One to his laptop from four or five years ago, a machine that wouldn’t run today’s version of Windows, he pointed out.

Apple would never release beta products the way Google has (How long was Gmail in beta?) and Google’s version of an online storefront is pretty underwhelming from a marketing or technology standpoint. But in every way, we’ve seen Google’s agenda is to zig where Apple zags and by being the anti-Apple, they become the Microsoft of the New Millenium.

Great post Bill. The question to ponder is whether the market will evolve as Macintosh and Windows did or whether Apple will hold ground & continue to grow. Will, over time, the Mobile OS world sustain multiple providers or will we end up in a world where one OS dominates market share?

Is there a developer, application, and user network effect in the mobile world? Any kind of network effect could impact this outcome uniquely.

On the face of things, it would seem to me that Google is taking a page from the Microsoft Windows playbook and Apple is taking a page from, well, the, uh, not so successful Apple Macintosh playbook.

It could also just be that the Mobile OS world can end up looking very much like the video game console industry, with three players (Microsoft XBox, Sony PlayStation, & Nintendo Wii) today equally vying for market share along with several other players (Sega, Atari, 3DO, NEC, RCA, etc) making waves here & there. What about RIM in this above discussion? And, dare I say, Palm?

Although more free market examples would imply a standard Google & Microsoft analogy, only time will tell how the Mobile OS world evolves differently.

A thought provoking post, no doubt.

Where I disagree though are in the following ways:

1. Android is not a feature phone in that it costs $80 odd bucks monthly just as the iPhone.

2. The Microsoft OS driver was the wide range of applications. People stuck with MS-DOS and Windows because of the number of applications (just like Betamax vs VHS wars).

Not so with the iPhone. The iPhone has the largest number of apps and there is no driving force to use an Android phone except maybe to avoid AT&T.

These two points makes it a radically different market than the PC model.

-Augustus

One of the best articles I have read on the “Smartphone” war.