[johnmmix]

> But Apple don't seem intent on capturing the mass market.

Absolutely - they're clearly more interested in profitability and not having to kow-tow to partners than market share. And who can blame them - would you rather be Porsche or General Motors?

Market share is massively over-rated as a metric - someone in the circulation dept of a major newspaper group once told me that when companies start talking about market share, they're usually trying to hide the real story, such as lack of or decline in customers/revenues/profits. Obviously smartphones are a completely different industry, but there are multiple ways to measure business performance, and the ones which are most loudly trumpeted aren't necessarily the most important ones.

[metageek]

>Market share is massively over-rated as a metric - someone in the circulation dept of a major newspaper group

Market share is much more important for platforms than for newspapers, because a high market share draws in developers, which makes your platform more useful.

[johnmmix]

Yeah, but you have to monetize that larger market, and the Android world seems very much oriented around getting free stuff: http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/05/distimo-june-2010/

I think it's calmed down a bit recently, but a few months ago, it seemed that a lot of the ads from UK retailers for Android phones heavily pushed the fact that there "x0,000 FREE applications" available. That's liable to create a culture where end-users begin to expect to get everything for free, which doesn't strike me as an appealing prospect for developers.

Contrast this to the Apple world, where for all the bitching about arbitrary approval rules, the App Store provides a means by which users can easily and happily pay for your product. This ease of monetization is the main reason, I suspect, why newspaper/magazine publishers have rushed headlong to embrace the iPad, as compared to websites, it's a lot more obvious how they might be able to extract value for their efforts.

Just look at how Angry Birds costs a dollar on the App Store, but is (currently) free on Android Marketplace. I don't know if the Android version has ads, or if Rovio plan to charge for it in future, but I'd imagine it's going to be a while before it becomes as lucrative for them as the iOS version.

[ZeroGravitas]

If you replace "free" with "ad supported" (which is definitely the case for Angry Birds on Android) in your post it gives a very different spin on the situation.

If you're in the UK then you've probably not seen an Apple iAd yet, but the fact they're on their way also radically changes the context for your argument.

[johnmmix]

I'll have to take your word for it re. the Android version of Angry Birds, as it fails to run properly on my Android phone, due to the fragmentation problems that Android advocates say are overblown.

http://www.rovio.com/index.php?mact=Blogs,cntnt01,showentry,...

As for iAds, the you're right, I haven't seen any yet, but is there any data yet to indicate that they're more effective/lucrative/gamechanging than the likes of AdMob?

[ZeroGravitas]

As someone who's just moving from an iPhone 3G, I know all about the pain of stuff not working well, or not working at all, on lower end hardware.

If Rovio had said that it didn't work on each of those devices for a different reason then that would be a good example of the android fragmentation bogeyman. Since they're all just lower specced devices, presumably struggling for basically same reason, it's not really a great example.

Regarding iAds, I've seen a few folk claiming they're game changers, but my point was that Apple are jumping heavily into the free/ad supported arena which reduces the impact of any contrast with Android on that point.

[arethuza]

If we say Porsche is Apple then Android is probably VW - both producing excellent products that looks pretty similar from a distance but with relatively little overlap in the markets for their core products.

[NB I mean VW branded cars - not the entire range of VW brands, which is huge]

[joubert]

It is funny you should use Porsche and VW as analogs, because Porsche is the majority shareholder in VW.

[zoomzoom]

That was true until this summer, when their leveraged position collapsed and Porsche was bought by VW, actually.

[joubert]

I stand corrected. Interesting recent article about the dynamic (past and future) between the two: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/business/29porsche.html?pa...

[arethuza]

I'd actually forgotten about that - but I still think the point about markets, and indeed brands, applies. From the perspective of a consumer the fact the the Porsche holding company owns a sizable chunk of VW probably doesn't register.

[tvon]

In such an analogy, Android would be an engine.