Access and Quality
It is hard to refrain from drawing parallels between the iPhone / Android competition today and the Windows / Apple competition of yesteryear (circa 1995-ish).
In the previous version of this battle, Apple had it’s clock cleaned by Microsoft – at least in terms of market share. The similarities are stark. Android promises a lower cost to consumers and a wider array of hardware choices, just like Microsoft provided with Windows on generic PCs. Apple is maintaing the same playbook of having a unified hardware / operating system environment that allows them greater control over the user experience. “Better user experience” is too nuanced of an argument when the competition is touting the importance of hardware features that Apple does not offer.
Does the user care that all icons have light reflections from the same angle? Or are they more likely to base their decision on the phone with “must have” features like a 47 megapixel camera, integrated printer, or biometric security?
This is why many people are predicting that Android will beat Apple in terms of market share. It is inevitable as far as I can tell. We are already starting to see Android phones be given away free with a 2 year contract. I am certain that a majority of consumers would choose “free” over UI consistency.
However, the people who think Apple is playing from the same playbook this time around are ignoring a key element.
Software.
In the 1990s Microsoft did a great job of attracting software developers to their platform. Before long almost everyone felt that they needed to choose windows because there was important software that they needed which was only available on Windows. The important software may have been Lotus Notes, or a special Dos database interface, or even games. This gave rise to the dominance of Microsoft Office as a de facto standard and a positive feedback look of dependance was created.
Apple took notes and quickly attracted almost every software developer with an interest in the mobile platform. When you combine Apple’s focus on user interface consistency with third party developers, a power struggle is inevitable. This has been a very public power struggle and has focused on Apple’s “gate keeper” position over the App Store.
Android has taken a different stance – anyone can publish an Android app. There is no real approval process. There is not a 1995 parallel for this dichotomy, and that is why this time might be different.
I am sure that we will see more Android phones in the market than iPhones soon. It won’t be all that long before there are twice as many Android phones as iPhones. If we don’t see some meaningful competition from HP’s WebOS or Microsoft’s Windows 7 Mobile, I could even see Android hitting 80 – 90% of market share in a similar way to the Mac / PC battle.
Unfortunately, there is another parallel.
The big news today is that millions of people have downloaded an Android wallpaper app that steals personal information and sends it to China. The big news yesterday is that the guy behind the Mariposa botnet was arrested.
Note: for those that don’t know, a botnet is a bunch of computers that have been infected with a virus and will take commands from the botnet operator. They are used to send out spam, launch cyber accounts, traffic illicit content, commit fraud, etc.
Are we going to start seeing botnets in people’s pockets? The defense for why Windows has more viruses than other operating systems like OSX or Linux has always been that Windows has more market share and thus is a more attractive target. Well, right now the iPhone has way more market share than Android, but we don’t see this kind of thing in the App Store.
So just as the desktop battle was waged with the availability of quality applications, the same will hold true for the mobile market.
Android will be cheaper. Android will have more choice for hardware. There will be high-end Android hardware that is on par with iPhones. The question is, will developers target Android or have they already chosen sides.
In order for Android to pass iPhone, there are going to have to be more high quality apps, and fewer junk apps like wallpapers that steal your info.
