The Death of Android

Lawsuit what it really means

With Apple's crushing defeat of Samsung in the recent court decision, Apple has won, and Android is done. Right? Of course not. Here's a few thoughts as to why:

• Samsung will appeal, and these things will take a long time to sort out.
• The damages sound large, but the mobile market is hugely profitable, and Samsung is dominating right now. 
• By the time this is sorted out, Samsung and Android will have moved on, and worked around the "infringements". 
• Just a few months ago, industry surveys showed Android smartphones outselling iPhones by a 2-1 margin.
• More recent data shows that gap to have grown to a 4-1 ratio in the global smartphone market. (That will tighten up a bit with the release of the iPhone 5, but it seems unlikely that iPhones will ever outsell Android in a fiscal quarter, again.)

And the mobile-news for Apple keeps getting worse. About six months ago, data showed that iOS had a huge lead in app purchases. About 40% of iPhone users had purchased more than 20 apps, whereas only 10% of Android users had done so. In short, Android users were cheap, while Apple users were willing to fork out the money. Kind of makes sense, seeing that you pay a premium for Apple products, anyway.

This meant that smart developers were coding iOS apps first, and then doing an Android version when they had a chance. But more recent data has shown this gap is narrowing. A recent update to the data shows that the percentage of 20+ app purchasers for iPhones has dropped to only 25%. Apparently, the enthusiasts already have their iPhones, and as they pick up more casual users, the purchases have waned. 

In the meantime, as the iPhone 4s got long in the tooth, lots of exciting Android phones hit the market, and Android seemed to be picking up the enthusiastic purchasers. In the same time period, the 20+ app purchasers for Android doubled from 10% to 20%. 

So in just about 6 months, a 4-1 advantage for Apple has virtually been evened up. And with a (latest-reported) 68-17 percent advantage for Android in the smartphone market, Android-first app development will likely be the smart play for mobile developers in the next 6-12 months.