[idspispopd]

These figures are a red herring, I'd like to know how the iPhone-equivalent models from Samsung/others are selling. The 3GS is available on upfront $0, but the plan cost is higher, which means it's not competitive to the much cheaper, albeit less-featured/powered models from other vendors. In essence this is apple replicating their 90%+ marketshare in computers over USD$1000.

As an app developer I'm more interested in how this top end pans out. I want the consumers who are willing to buy apps, and I want there to be lots of them on one kind of platform so I don't have to do the heavy lifting in making the game consistent across all handsets. I'm not making angry-birds clones that could run on minecraft redstone, so a basic level of GPU+CPU capability is needed.

Samsung's business model promotes the further fragmentation of Android, and I think this will be a bad thing for consumers(read: developers). We'll be back to the days of nokia making a different phone for every conceivable type of person there is, with only nokia or huge studios with the capability to make the umpteen variations required to make the game feel at least comparable across each handset.

If there are 80% of the market using android devices that are underpowered the only winner will be flashlight apps.