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Tuesday, May 3, 2016

How Android reaches 100% market share

Android already commands over 80 percent from the mobile OS market reveal globally, and just under 60 percent in America. But you wouldn’t know it within Silicon Valley - just about everyone I know has a good iPhone. As the consumer technology landscape evolves within the next five years nevertheless, there are a quantity of reasons to believe which Android, and the Search engines stack more broadly, could take a much better share and become the platform of preference, even here.

Loosening from the Apple ecosystem lock-in

Anecdotally, probably the most frequently cited reasons amongst iPhone users for sticking with iOS is that these people love the “blue pockets. ” iMessage, and it's clever and seamless integration along with iOS’s native SMS software, is an incredibly sticky function of iOS.

Over-the-top (OTT) messenger applications have several benefits over SMS. The assurance of understanding that one’s message has been delivered and also the synchronous knowledge that another user is typing give a deeper level of intimacy and immediacy towards the conversation. The ability in order to easily share media, the possible lack of a character limit, the seamless continuation of the conversation while switching in between desktop and mobile, and the possible lack of per-message international charges all increase OTT messaging’s appeal.

But most of all, OTT messenger platforms tend to be valuable to users towards the extent that one’s peers will also be on the network. Since iMessage is made into the native TEXT application on iOS, users also don’t ever need to switch to a 3rd party application, and are automatically drawn to the network. No change in behavior is needed. So OTT messaging generally and iMessage in specific exhibit powerful network results. Hence the draw from the “blue bubbles. ”

Does this story problem? A mobile hardware manufacturer having a proprietary OS and the captive OTT messenger software? Research in Motion, now referred to as Blackberry, had exactly this positioning using its popular Blackberry smartphones. Among the big draws of Rim, outside of the business environment, was Blackberry Messenger (BBM). But ultimately BBM wasn’t a powerful enough draw to keep people with an inferior OS and 3rd party developers created cross-platform messengers for example WhatsApp. Today, Blackberry OS has merely a 0. 2 percent marketplace share.

WhatsApp just entered 1 billion users. It's not inconceivable that OTT messaging programs like WhatsApp could substitute SMS entirely. Alternatively, the migration of SMS towards the Rich Communication Services (RCS) standard could bring all the advantages of messenger programs to texting. In possibly case, the network effect of iMessage will be significantly diminished, greatly lowering the barrier for all those wanting to leave the actual Apple ecosystem. iMessage isn't invincible.

While iMessage could be the most important example associated with Apple ecosystem lock-in, there are lots of other products where Apple company lock-in could similarly end up being weakened. For example, the emergence of Google Photos being an application across Android as well as iOS significantly reduces the actual lock-in of Photos, the actual emergence of Spotify decreases the lock-in of iTunes, and also the emergence of Drive as well as Dropbox reduces the lock-in associated with iCloud.

Gradual reduction associated with Android fragmentation

One from the biggest problems with the actual Android ecosystem is fragmentation: every hardware OEM may operate different versions of Android and may significantly slow down the actual release of software improvements. Fragmentation is frustrating each for developers and with regard to users. At the period of writing, I nevertheless cannot get Android Marshmallow upon my Droid Turbo, despite Google’s release from the OS in October. Actually, as of April 2016, just 4. 6 percent of Google android phones globally had the most recent Android Marshmallow OS set up.

In contrast, Apple can push out a brand new OS to all of its devices the moment it is ready; the only real gating factor is how quickly users decide to install the update. App developers often decide to release on iOS very first specifically because releasing upon Android requires tweaking the actual code separately for all the different versions in the marketplace.

But fragmentation is not solely caused by different versions of Google android operating simultaneously. Many equipment OEMs, and even service providers, install their own computer programs and layers along with Android to customize the actual OS.

When a customer utilizes the iPhone for the very first time, he/she gets the identical interface to everybody else with a new apple iphone. The same cannot be said to have an Android phone, where the actual default calendar, SMS, e-mail, keyboard etc. could just like likely come from Samsung or even Verizon, despite the fact which Google itself offers many of these products. Without the integration from the Google suite of items, the relative attractiveness associated with Android over iOS is actually diminished.

However, there is really a possibility that in the actual coming years this fragmentation is going to be significantly reduced. Some OEMs, for example Motorola and HTC, are continually reducing the amount of software customization on their own latest models, bringing them closer and nearer to stock Android.

Another driving force for that reduction in fragmentation may be the Nexus suite of cell phones and tablets. While these to are still manufactured through third-party OEMs, such because Motorola, LG, and Huawei, they're done so in near cooperation with Google and include stock Android featuring just Google software. Nexus cell phones get Android software improvements immediately, because they tend to be controlled by Google. Towards the extent Google is prosperous in proliferating these Nexus cell phones, it can mitigate the issues of fragmentation. Nexus may also represent an opportunity for Google to construct a brand cache close to its devices, making them more competitive with Apple in the high end of the marketplace.

Decoupling of phones as well as plans

As of 2016, the majority of US carriers have lastly eliminated two-year service agreement plans; going forward, Americans can pay for their smart telephone and their plans individually. One of the unique options that come with the US mobile market previously was a relative price-insensitivity associated with consumers to devices given that they typically didn’t pay for his or her devices or paid a very subsidized price. In truth, on many cell telephone plans, if a member made a decision to upgrade to a cheaper device instead of a greater one, he/she would not receive the economic benefit.

This paradigm certainly encouraged individuals to buy highly priced phones. However in a world where individuals buy their very own phones at full list price, they are probably be much more price-sensitive. The present base price of a good iPhone 6s, before any kind of upgrades, tax, or Apple company Care is $649. In comparison, the average Android phone can be bought all-in for well beneath $250.

The emergence of Google like a desktop OS

Many may not even remember that Google actually offers their very own desktop OS, known because Chrome OS, which competes along with Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s OPERATING SYSTEM X. Chrome OS today has under 3% market share associated with desktops globally, which isn't a critical mass to attract the interest of app developers. But there are numerous of emerging trends that could mean that Google, instead of Microsoft or Apple, may be the desktop OS of the near future.

Firstly, the relevance of computer programs themselves is becoming much less important as more applications proceed to the cloud. Even the dominant MS Office suite are now able to be accessed on the internet browser with Office 365. Along with native software development getting less important, and the actual browser becoming more essential, the lack of size in Chrome OS won't matter as much, since native applications aren't necessary. Also, because Chromebooks are made to leave most of the program and storage in the actual cloud, they have less costly hardware components and sell for any fraction of the price of Macbooks and most Windows computers too.

Perhaps the larger driver is Google’s alleged programs to fold Chrome OS into Android next year. Doing so would immediately bring the world’s biggest app ecosystem to Google’s desktop computer OS and would offer an even stronger value proposal for users to choose into an Android cell phone.

Of course, owning the desktop OS isn't as strategically important today since it once was, and will probably become even less so moving forward. But owning a client relationship across all products and all technology make use of cases is more important today than ever before. In a sense, Google like a desktop OS is the missing link within the picture: with a aggressive desktop OS, Google could offer customers a regular experience across all their devices, further supporting the actual Android ecosystem and intimidating Windows, OS X, as well as iOS.

Apple is the world’s best brand and has consistently been in the forefront of device innovation during the last two decades. But because consumer technology evolves, software and Internet integration is gaining increasing importance over hardware. Since the presence of the Internet is constantly on the permeate more of our lives and also the technology itself starts in order to “disappear, ” the battle for that consumer may tilt in support of the world’s largest Internet company within the world’s best designer associated with hardware.

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