[dejb]

> It's a brilliant, (albeit arguably evil), strategy by Apple to create a viscous circle where developers bind themselves to iPhone, which means the good apps wind up there and thus users buy the product

The only problem with your theory is the 'Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S' part. Perhaps Android will need a bigger market share (double?) to really start stealing the higher quality developers from iOS but if the trend continues this will happen.

[demallien]

Not really. Firstly, if you're going to count all Android device sales against the iPhone, you're going to also have to count all iOS devices, such as the iPod Touch and the iPad. At this point, iOS is still well ahead of Android in the US.

Secondly, the US is not the whole world. Here in France I don't know anyone other than tech geeks that have Android phones, but a majority of my friends have iPhones or Blackberries.

Thirdly, you have to take into account the fact that Apple has created a culture of users paying for content. They have also made paying for content as painless as is humanly imaginable - select item, enter password, and it downloads straight to your phone. Android devs have a long wait ahead before they start to see the returns that iOS devs are seeing.