http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/12/technology/quadroid/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin
Apparently, Quandroid is the new Wintel, which makes perfect sense- if you know what it means.
While I can understand and appreciate the comparison, I'm more interested in the Android v Apple battle. I don't forsee the third contender, RIM's Blackberry, going anywhere for the time being. RIM set the standard for smartphones, but that standard is evolving. While government and corporate employees will almost certainly be issued company Blackberries for the next several years, the rest of the cell market is moving in different directions.
The link above made an interesting statement about how Android phones hold 27% of the smart cell market while Apple holds 23%. That figure must ring true to the ears of Droid users as a sign of Apple's impending disenthronement, but here are two things Droid addicts don't realize:
1) The figure compares operating systems, not individual platforms
2) For Droid phones it's a flood of quantity over quality
The iPhone is 100% fruit: it's an Apple mobile operating system (iOS), with Apple software (like iTunes and Safari), on an Apple hardware platform. Droid, on the other hand, is just an operating system (Chrome OS). Google had to pair with six companies (Samsung, LG, Sanyo, Motorola, HTC, and Nokia) to make the phone happen. And considering that fact, you have to look at how many phones can call themselves Droids.
Sprint has 8 phones.
AT&T also has 8.
Verizon, leader of the pack, has 14.
T-Mobile, bringing up the rear, has 3.
Apple, on the other hand, technically has two. But because the 3GS can upgrade to the iOS that runs on the iPhone 4, it's really only one phone.
If we were comparing operating systems' market slices alone, my hat would certainly be off to Android; but we're not. We have THIRTY THREE Android phones against Apple's ONE iPhone. 33:1. Imagine how the market demographics would change if Apple made even 3 or 4 iPhones? Imagine an iPhone 4, an iPhone mini, or an iPhone shuffle. Rather than a couple of Apple phones, we have only one- and Apple is holding 23% of the current market with it. If each Droid phone was given a market percentage as a hardware platform alone, it would be an average of 0.82% per device.
Granted, as a credible OS Android is certainly on the rise, and neither Google nor Apple show any signs of slowing. While Android does have the advantage of being an open platform, we have 7 companies' 33 phones barely doing better than 1 company's 1 phone. When you look at it that way, Jobs is leaving Google in the dust.
How 'bout that Apple?
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