I just thought the article was interesting, so I posted about it. If you want to dispute the claims, I suggest responding to the author in the discussion thread at PC Magazine.

Steve

Basically i thought you were righting off android thanks

However, my conclusion was that I thought it was too early to write Android off, which seems to be your comment, too. So, again, what part of my article were you disagreeing with?

Steve

I am commenting on the article above your comment and not your thanks

kind regards

Ian mccully

I am commenting on this not your answer thanks

Posted by Steve Mueller on April 28, 2009 – 4:12 amComments

Frank posted about 1 million T-Mobile G1s being sold, but Sascha Segan at PC Magazine is beginning to worry whether Android is already a failure. He bases his claims on a couple of Android_Failurepoints.

First, there are only two Android phones available — the T-Mobile G1 and the HTC Magic (which is similar to the G1 without a keyboard). That’s not a great variety for a platform touted as being so flexible. Sure, various hardware OEMs (like Motorola) have said they’d be dev eloping Android phones, but nobody has any to show yet.

Second, the software development environment isn’t very good. He claims people said the initial Software Development Kit (SDK) wasn’t great, and that the new SDK doesn’t really have any game-changing features.

Also, if you look at sales, T-Mobile has sold 1 million Android phones, but the iPhone sold almost 3.7 million units in its first six months. That’s a huge difference.

Granted, the iPhone may be a special case, but Android hasn’t seemed to have gotten a lot of play at Mobile World Congress or CTIA. Maybe I’m too focused on Windows Mobile, but have I missed much?

Personally, I think that it’s too early to write Android off. Google has deep pockets and great talent, so I’m sure they can make a great product. However, there’s also a lot of competition out there from a newly revitalized Windows Mobile, the Palm Pre, BlackBerry and, of course, the iPhone. What do you think

Steve

Palm Pre will take on the Iphone while android is allowed to mature. T-mobile is happy..so will be motorolla and now samsung.

It was never meant to compete with the likes of apple hardware and OS.

Apple and even Palm can take all the high end user(guys and gals who buy mac books) Google want everybody else and 2010 they will be closer to world domination…hehehe

I mean really blackberry not doing well.. neither is palm..hell even the iphone did not hit its expect marks this year.

Android is right where Google wants it.

By the way look at all the job posting for android developers

Android is only available on 2 phones, with more in the pipeline. So, that means that right now, I can get android on precisely twice as many phones as the iPhone OS… or I guess you could argue its availabe on the same number of phones if you count iPhone and iPhone 3g as two distinct devices.

I think you have to count the iPhone and iPhone 3g as different devices, and you may even have to count the models (different amounts of flash, like 4 GB and 8 GB on the original iPhone) as different devices.

Also, to some degree, you need to look at the carriers that support the devices (especially if they have different branding). If you do that, the iPhone has many more devices, because it's available on many more carriers.

In the Windows Mobile world, should we count the HTC Touch Pro (unlocked) as a different phone from the AT&T Fuze? I can argue either way. I think you certainly have to count the Verizon Touch Pro as a different phone due to the different cellular radio (although that argument obviously doesn't apply to the iPhone or Android as neither are available on CDMA systems yet).

@ctitanic:

3 devices. Today Samsung already announced the I7600 using Android.

Cool. Thanks for pointing that out.

@doog:

My guess is that G1 sales have met or exceeded expectations so far. Apple hoped and expected to sell lots of iPhones, and they have; I suspect T-Mobile and Google had lower expectations. Non-story.

I hardly think your comment proves it's a non-story. The article cited addressed more than just sales; device availability and software development were also addressed.

T-Mobile may be happy, but is Google really satisfied?

@T1000:

If we start to whole-heartedly accept Android as being superior to everything and ignore or give excuses for its faults, then Android will fail. I guarantee you that.

I suspect there are a lot of iPhone fanboys that who would argue that. :D The iPhone was lacking many basic features expected in today's phones and media devices, yet it is doing very well.

I agree with your premise, though. Letting faults sit by ignoring them leads to stagnation.

Steve

Google makes money from selling advertising space. The Mobile market is important as an ad platform, but since they gather no real revenue from the sale of each individual product, they end up with an arms length relationship with the technology.

If you look though Google's technology offerings, you'll see one simple theme: Make products that are clever, but don't worry about the fit and finish.

Google is counting on other companies like HTC to do the hard work of building a polished product, and that's a completely different world than the one we see from Apple.