Android Gaining Momentum Among Future Smartphone Buyers – Mac Rumors

Android Gaining Momentum Among Future Smartphone Buyers – Mac Rumors.

Time to share something around the area of the smartphone.  MacRumors.com has provided some interesting data on the smartphone market that shows that the iPhone is about to experience some serious competition in the coming months and years.

Although I am an iPhone user at the moment, I am very keen to see the Google phone and where that goes.  The key thing about this chart is that the number of users that will be looking at the Google Android solution for their next phone.  Embedded within this statistic is the ever increasing number of people that just want to gadget shop, but what is telling is the significant increase in numbers from the last survey.  This could be a factor of the recent announcements of the pending Google phone or perhaps, and more likely, a growing number of people that feel the Apple locked down code is frustrating and limiting innovation.

It is here that I take stock with Apple’s approach and question their logic of making the code as locked down as they have done.  Innovation thrives on bringing together innovative parties across multiple dimensions of your product.  For so long, Apple has provided developers on their platforms with developer kits and encouraged development, which is fantastic and adds to the reason Apple is more than just a “name” brand to pin on your shirt!  This also applies to the iPhone, however Apple needs to open the code up further to allow developers to execute more background based code and also more interactivity with other applications on the platform.

However, in saying all this is it clear that user satisfaction (based on these survey results) is fantastic.  Any number over 75% is a great result, and the iPhone is clearly achieving this.

It will be interesting to see these results once the Google phone is in the general population and competing against the iPhone for real rather than just on internet discussion boards.

The question on my mind at the moment is “what is next?”.  Will we see the new iPhone OS deliver additional capability for the handset or perhaps will be see a few of the other players drop out of the game?  Both are clear possibilities.  In my view there does appear to be only three key players now, iPhone, Google and Blackberry.  All other players are just making up the numbers in a game that is becoming more competitive every single day.

Cheers