Feature Phones Make Java ME, Not Android, the #2 Mobile Internet OS 286
bonch writes "According to a report from NetApplications, which has measured browser usage data since 2004, Oracle's Java Mobile Edition has surpassed Android as the #2 mobile OS on the internet at 26.80%, with iOS at 46.57% and Android at 13.44%. And the trend appears to be growing. Java ME powers hundreds of millions of low-end 'feature phones' for budget buyers. In 2011, feature phones made up 60% of the install base in the U.S." Looking at the linked chart, it looks Java ME's been ahead of Android for all of 2011, too, except for the month of October.
Holiday impact? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder how much Christmas played into those little bumps. It's almost like people head off buying expensive new phones during that period, possibly in hopes in getting them for gifts. Possibly to afford more gifts. Would have been nice to see back one more year. Because otherwise looks like JavaME is steadily losing share, but had a bump the last two months.
Re:Holiday impact? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how much Christmas played into those little bumps. It's almost like people head off buying expensive new phones during that period, possibly in hopes in getting them for gifts.
Sounds like "gifting" someone a puppy or a kitten. Hey, here's a phone as a gift. Whoops it comes with a $120/year two year contract, so sorry your "gift" actually cost you about three grand over the next two years, hope you don't mind.
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In a family though it makes sense. My spouse got me a Galaxy Nexus for Christmas and her cousin (like 8) got his first cellphone from his parents for Christmas.
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Still pay five times more per month (Score:3)
What about pay as you go phones?
The affordable pay as you go plans tend to be available only for feature phones. For example, Virgin Mobile USA's "payLo" plans starting at $7/mo appear available only for feature phones, and Android phones have to use a $35/mo "Beyond Talk" plan that has as many voice minutes in a month as I'll use in a year.
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what do you need to tell them what phone do you have? just buy the sim, just buy the phone and pop it in.
I'm assuming pay-as-you-go means actually _prepaid_ as it usually does.
Virgin doesn't use a SIM (Score:2)
just buy the sim
Virgin Mobile USA doesn't use a SIM. It's CDMA2000, not GSM.
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LOL mobile phones in the US are the biggest scam / confuseopoly you can imagine. Imagine the opposite of the European business relationship, and you're there.
I was doing the Virgin Mobile $7/month plan like Tepples, and recently lucked into the republic wireless while it was open for beta, and I'm quite pleased with it, although it does cost about 3 times as much at $20/month.
My $120/month iphone coworker is absolutely aghast that he pays more per month than I pay in half a year. A large part of the appea
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$120/year two year contract, so sorry your "gift" actually cost you about three grand over the next two years
Let's see... 120 * 2 = 240. Where does the other $2,760 come into play?
Did you mean $120/month? And if so, who pays anything like that for a smartphone? Even Verizon has options for unlimited data plans at around $30/month, and in this case, you pay no different for the voice plans as you would pay for a "feature" phone. Their most expensive unlimited data AND unlimited talking phone plan is still less than $100/month.
Re:Holiday impact? (Score:5, Informative)
You are correct. Here is a link to a chart with a slightly longer [netmarketshare.com] time frame.
JavaME has been rapidly losing share to Android. Thanks bonch for bringing this to everyone's attention.
Re:Holiday impact? (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting apps onto feature phones (Score:2)
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yes. you just have to get the .jar sent to the phone somehow or make the phone to download the .jar .jar there. if you want it to load as signed, to allow for more lax security rules(in actual reality though signing j2me apps is useless, you don't gain much benefits from buying a cert and signing. I know, I tried - what you'd need would be carriers/manufacturers sign. and different
a standard simple way is to make put them on a web server that has the right mime types and then point the phones browser to the
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btw loading from web works usually with even old-ass carrier branded motorolas, even if they're of the variety where local sideloading of j2me apps was disabled.
So if local sideloading is disabled on a particular model, and I don't subscribe to a big data plan, how do I test each build?
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in the emulator.
you don't need to test every build on a real device for most kind of j2me apps, apart from testing that the api's are actually present on the device and do what the documents say, which they don't.
but a dataplan would be the first thing to get. or a device that allows sideloading, it's not like they're that hard to find. for simple 2d games the emulators are just peachy, but you need to test every now and then for performance of course until you get a feel for it..
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but a dataplan would be the first thing to get. or a device that allows sideloading
What Java ME device that allows sideloading would you recommend for use on Virgin Mobile USA so that I can get a feel for performance?
So which US carriers impose restrictions? (Score:2)
Very few J2ME devices impose limits on installing apps, unless the device is sold through a carrier who enabled such restrictions.
Among Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile USA, which impose and which do not impose such restrictions?
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It's really hit or miss. AT&T, at least, imposes them on some phones, but not on others.
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And this is why i cringe whenever i read a article on mobile tech from a US tech site (and lets face it, most english language tech new is US centric. And the non-english often just translate the english stuff). The US mobile phone market is so ass backwards that it can only really be compared to Japan, if one limits ones view to places that at least try to appear democratic.
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The US mobile phone market is so ass backwards that it can only really be compared to Japan, if one limits ones view to places that at least try to appear democratic.
No, you can compare it to Canada's mobile phone market quite favourably.
Canada: making the US cell phone system look reasonable since 1985.
Yaz
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Sprint didn't back when I had a feature phone. Sprint has been pretty open about things like that. I downloaded Opera for My A900 back in the day with not problem.
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It depends. I have an old provider-locked LG Keybo which only allows direct installs from their own website. Trivially easy to hack with Bitpim, of course, and I can just copy .jar files to the internal file system and it's menu picks them up right away. I dispensed with the shitty Openwave browser and put on Opera Mini, as well as the Albrite reader which does a nice job with epub books, and it works great. Unfortunately the keyboard is showing wear-and-tear and I'll have to upgrade to an iPhone or Android
Mobile OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh, since when was Java ME an OS?
More phones run MIDlets than APKs (Score:2)
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Please allow me to rephrase: "More phones are capable of running MIDlets than APKs."
Sure. But is there a functioning *market* for midlets? One that will bring a pack of uniformly targetable customers to developers and a selection of apps for users? Or is it divided up by handset manufacturer and implementation?
I followed Java ME for a decade; it was promising, but it was never one platform that could bring users and developers together because it was controlled by so many different middle men. It was the handset makers' role to provide an implementation, and they catered to the carriers, n
Re:Mobile OS? (Score:4, Funny)
Well first there was Java 3.1,
Then there was Java 3.11, For Workgroups,
Then there was Java 95
Then there was Java 98
Finally there was Java ME
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because (Score:2)
Because people routinely use Java applications on their feature-phones, rather than phone-dialing and call-taking features? Really?
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Opera Mini makes for a much better browser than my phones built in one (much of it helped by the offloading nature of its design), and lately i have found myself using a facebook j2me that the site itself promoted.
What surprises me the most... (Score:2)
... is that people are a) paying for data plans for relatively dumb phones or b) surfing that much without a good data plan.
(I've had an iPhone since late 2007, but before that my (%$#@#$&%) kid ran up multi-hundred-dollar phone bills with a basic phone* and data costs of, I think, 20 cents per kilobyte. What does pay-as-you-go data run these days?)
* Nokia 6800, 128x128 color screen.
AOL was 1c per kB (Score:2)
20 cents per kilobyte
Even AOL was only 1 cent per kilobyte back in the 2400 bps modem era. Did you really mean 20 cents per kilobyte and not per megabyte?
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my first "data plan" pre-iphone era (way before) was $49.99 for 5 megabytes with something like 20-30 cents per kilobyte after that.
Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous.
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I remember experimentally buying a 500kb (little b) game back in the day over my phone. AT&T charged $5 for the game, and about $5 for the bandwidth to receive the game. It seemed like a bad case of double-dipping to me.
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Actually, cheap data plans in some cases can be a reason to stay on a relatively dumb phone, as long as it has a decent browser (and I think there is at least one HTC feature phone that has a good Opera browser). I'm on a no-longer available $30/month 500 minute, unlimited data/text SERO plan with Sprint. I am currently using a Treo 700. According to Sprint, if I were to switch to a more modern "smart phone" (by Sprint's definition), I'd have to switch to a new, much more expensive plan. So if my Treo d
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Opera Mini offloads much of the traffic and render work to external servers (yep, it breaks the https chain so i would not recommend it for online banking and such). The latest version has a data traffic display that shows that it has reduced the traffic amount by 90% over the usage period since install.
Sorry, but this is bull (Score:5, Insightful)
I have access to a great deal of actual and current mobile usage data, and this is just completely at odds with reality. "Feature phone" owners in the United States typically do not have data plans and do not use the Internet.
Actual measured usage of mobile Web services by "feature phones" is slightly above that of Windows Mobile, which is to say "irrelevant noise at the bottom of the chart" in the range of 1 to 2 percent.
Grandpa's Jitterbug may in fact run J2ME, but Grandpa doesn't use it.
Re:Sorry, but this is bull (Score:5, Informative)
have access to a great deal of actual and current mobile usage data, and this is just completely at odds with reality.
That is my experience too. Statcounter is more representative of what I'm seeing: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-US-monthly-201012-201112 [statcounter.com]
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StatCounter's Worldwide [statcounter.com] numbers show iOS and Android about even.
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and symbian at top.
and opera is nr1 mobile browser.
nice stats, but not very useful, they're too broad. nokiaOS(s40 by any other name) isn't shown as it's own operating system.
anyhow. series60 is the largest smartphone platform out there globally, android second, ios third and bb as fourth. if you count s40 as 'smart' then all the others drop, it's smart enough computing platform to use for nigerian phishing so... and wp7 is miniscule outside ms marketing tours and silverlight guys looking for a break. that'
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I have access to a great deal of actual and current mobile usage data, and this is just completely at odds with reality."Feature phone" owners in the United States typically do not have data plans and do not use the Internet.
Actual measured usage of mobile Web services by "feature phones" is slightly above that of Windows Mobile, which is to say "irrelevant noise at the bottom of the chart" in the range of 1 to 2 percent.
Grandpa's Jitterbug may in fact run J2ME, but Grandpa doesn't use it.
Yes, in the USA, feature phone owners do not use the Internet. However, there are a few poor, sorry souls who do not have the good fortune to live in the Android-buying, iOS-loving, Blackberry-clutching USA.
The summary links to two articles; the first one (Netmarketshare) is global and the second one (Neilsen) is US-specific. Sounds like your data is US-specific as well.
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Not totally accurate. I had internet access with my T-Mobile based Ericsson World Phone. I also had unlimited data on the edge network for only $5 a month.
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Yep, if you paid more than $5 for the phone it can run Java (unless Steve Jobs said NO!), but only the really desperate access the net with one and almost none knowingly install or run any Java apps beyond what the device shipped with. I tested net access on my fathers feature phone and it was painfully, unusably slow. On a sad JaveME based 'china phone' it was still far too bad to actually use, even over WiFi.
JavaME is a ubiquitous tech that no-one knowingly chooses to use. That's not a story, that's just
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Agreed. I have some kind of Java crap on my 'makes phone calls and sends texts' phone and every once in a while I press one of the buttons by accident while it's in my pocket and next time I open it it says 'Starting Java' and the battery is down 90%.
So I presumably have this thing and really, really wish I didn't.
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Nowhere does the data say that it refers to the US, though. In fact, Netmarketshare specifically weights data by country. I was in Thailand 7 or 8 years ago, and internet stuff (especially e-mail) was pretty common to see everyone doing on all handsets, most of which would be considered dumbphones (or Symbian).
iPhones are disproportionately popular in the US. The rest of the world has been using Java handsets for smartphone tasks forever, including Opera Mobile (which is excellent, by the way).
The second
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Reality
Land Mass:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=land+mass+USA+vs+Europe [wolframalpha.com]
USA 3.719 million mi^2
Europe 2.227 million mi^2
Asia 18.46 million mi^2
Population
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+USA+vs+Europe [wolframalpha.com]
USA 309 million
Europe 595 million
Asia 4330 million
Economic Activity???? (i just used GDP)
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=GDP+USA+vs+Europe+vs+Asia [wolframalpha.com]
USA $14.6 Trillion USD
Europe $17.96 Trillion USD
Asia $19.19 Trillion USD
so you are correct except that Europe alone is larger in each count.. t
The 23 different languages of the European Union (Score:2)
so you are correct except that Europe alone is larger in each count
How much larger is Europe in count per spoken language? English is official only in two countries that I'm aware of: 1. Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and 2. Ireland. To target a European market, for example, you need to hire people to translate your application into the 23 different languages of the European Union.
Yay! (Score:2, Troll)
Unashamed Java fanboy here. Yes!
This must really burn up the haters.
OS? (Score:3)
J2ME is not an OS. It's a runtime environment that runs on top of an OS (like Blackberry OS), just like normal Java.
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This is not true. Nokia feature phones run Symbian OS that uses the Symbian kernel designed for the low power single core microcontrollers that these phones usually have. Java ME is the application layer of Symbian OS.
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Feature phones normally run a customized variant of Linux.
This is not true. Nokia feature phones run Symbian OS that uses the Symbian kernel designed for the low power single core microcontrollers that these phones usually have. Java ME is the application layer of Symbian OS.
Actually, no... Anything running Symbian would be in the smart phone segment. Feature phones from Nokia run the proprietary S40 operating system, with J2ME running on top of a native UI. If it is a really simple phone (dumb-phone) it will typically be S30 (again, a proprietary Nokia OS).
Anyway, you are correct that Linux-based feature phones are not the norm. It is still a bit heavy OS to run for low-end phones.
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Only company i know that uses linux for their featurephones is Samsung, in their Bada platform.
Others use something homegrown that they have bolted various features to over the years, likely starting out with something not that different from something found on top of microcontrollers.
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Feature phones normally run a customized variant of Linux.
when did clueless n00bs start writing slashdot articles?
you're the noob. they normally run some custom realtime os. and by normally I mean bigger % of all those phones sold and only a tiny miniscule amount of j2me capable dumbphones that have been sold over the last 10 years run on linux.
samsung has bada going yeah true, and moto tried linux+java ui featurephones, but that's quite far from "normally".
Java ME is not an OS (Score:2)
Sorry, but Java ME is not an operating system.
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But it is a platform
So is the web. And that platform runs just fine on all smartphones and most feature phones.
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Heh... If it were using Linus' version of Linux, you'd be able to take the application userland via AOSS and run non-NDK applications with a minimum amount of jiggery-pokery on the desktop.
You. Can't.
And it's not because of just their insistence on the graphics being "non-standard". Android's Linux kernel has additional mods that have yet to be merged back in. So, it's an Android specific fork of the Linux kernel combined with an Android app framework in an Android specific userland (it's different than
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but it's a system that operates the computer right? I mean regardless of where the pieces came from it's an entire system, correct?
True. But that wasn't the question; and answering the question really does depend on the view of an operating system:
In the first, the answer depends on further information.
In the second, only the Linux Kernel would be considered the operating system; everything else (glibc, etc.) would be the user environment.
In the third, whatever com
How do non-native browsers factor in to this? (Score:2)
I would love to see more information about how the statistics were gathered. How would using Firefox, Opera or Skyfire impact this? Does this really only mean that the majority of Android users don't use their built in browser when using the web? I know I frequently use either Firefox or Skyfire, though I've started to use the built in browser with ICS more. Comparatively, my impression at least is that the vast majority of users on iPhone/iPad use Safari.
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well, they screw up the stats, of course.
if you're tired of m. sites, you'd click your opera to report itself as a desktop browser anyways.
it's quite possible they're only gathering stats which include the phone model on the headers - and only those which they happened to buy from some db they chose.
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Not surprising, as for instance the only Opera browser found for iOS is Opera Mini. Apple have specifically denied anyone from making a Safari competitor (closest you get is a bunch of UI wrappers around the Webkit engine provided by iOS).
Also, a good bunch of these alternative browsers allow the user to mask them as iOS Safari. This because various sites push one site to iOS and a much more limited one to just about anything else (or just toss the desktop site at anything non-iOS). It is like a repeat of t
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Check the bottom-right section of their home page for some changes to their collection methodology. They seem like they have their heads on the right way about the data they're receiving, though it makes me increasingly sad for the mutilation of browser agent strings.
http://www.netmarketshare.com/ [netmarketshare.com]
Mobile vs Desktop? (Score:2)
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The graph is crap. Note the lack of any explanation of methodology -- or even a clear explanation what's actually being measured.
Actual measured usage of the Web by mobile devices (i.e., phones and not including tablets) puts Android collectively slightly ahead of the iPhone. Rim has fallen to about 4-5% and everybody else is not worth talking about. The reason Blackberry scores so low is that most Blackberry devices suck at Web browsing. They're still very good email tools and that's what they're used for
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That, or they have it masking as iOS to get the more worked on mobile site.
Does it matter? (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Feature phones aren't really suitable for sophisticated apps. Most power users have already migrated to the next gen touch phones (Android, IOS) or at the very least, Symbian. Those who stick on with feature phones probably don't use custom apps in the first place.
2. There is no proper marketplace for apps comparable to Android or Apple. This makes it difficult for the average user to obtain new apps, even if he/she were to actually want to use an app on their feature phone (which they probably don't).
3. Ultimately, the J2ME support may be relevant only to the phone manufacturer, in order to provide some bundled apps, like a calculator or something. Without a market place and given the hurdles (lack of user interest, severe incapability of phones) there's little incentive for developers to program for it.
Therefore, why would J2ME's wide availability be relevant?
NetApplications: Some of our clients (Score:2)
Apparently, some of their clients are: Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, Opera...
If you monitor Apple.com your sample might overestimate the number of iOS browsers, maybe even count iPods and iPads as phones...
I'd rather trust the Nilsen analysis (Android 40%, Apple 28%, RIM 19%, MS 8% of the smartphone market)
Wi-Fi tablets (Score:2)
I'd rather trust the Nilsen analysis (Android 40%, Apple 28%, RIM 19%, MS 8% of the smartphone market)
If you consider only smartphones, you're leaving out Wi-Fi tablets, at least if MightyYar is right [slashdot.org]. Apple sells a 3.5" tablet (iPod touch) and a 9.7" tablet (iPad), and apparently those far outsell their closest Android-powered substitutes.
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The Nilsen analysis only counts the US market, however.
In the UK the marketshare is different (Android and RIM are almost swapped over - Blackberry is still really popular here among women aged 16-25, and teens in general due to BBM), with increasing Android share over time.
This usage will drop (Score:2)
Too bad JavaME is fragmented (Score:4, Informative)
There is basically no common API, compatibility with different versions is totally unpredictable, and the development tools are across the board awful. JavaME is crap and it should be ignored and forgotten.
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Six months now. [thedailybeast.com]
With these statistics, it's just damn clear that the average Android user isn't using their phones for anything but "dumb phone with nice screen+keyboard" activities.
I'm not sure how you get that conclusion based on this. This metric appears to be saying nothing about how much devices are being used to do specific stuff, but we just don't know.
The metric here is, "Mobile/Tablet Top Operating System Share Trend", which is a pretty nebulous title. Share of what? Market share? How was it determined -- sales? Web access traffic at specific websites? IP traffic through certain ISPs? Which ones?
If they're talking about traffic VOLUME, how can you possibly compare internet acc
Android tablets too (Score:2)
If they're talking about traffic VOLUME, how can you possibly compare internet access by Android when all those iPads are being lumped in here with the mobile phones?
Why wouldn't Archos, Acer Iconia, ASUS Eee Pad, Motorola Xoom, B&N Nook Color, Amazon Kindle Fire, and other tablets running Android be lumped in with Android traffic volume?
Very true (Score:4, Interesting)
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It could also be a case of, "My iPhone or Android phone broke in November, and instead of spending more than it's worth to fix it, I'm just going to limp along with my old phone for a few weeks and get a brand new "best of breed" Android phone for Christmas"
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It could also be a case of, "My iPhone or Android phone broke in November, and instead of spending more than it's worth to fix it, I'm just going to limp along with my old phone for a few weeks and get a brand new "best of breed" Android phone for Christmas"
It could also be the case that Apple has secretly developed a faster than light drive and is in contact with the advanced civilization on Arcturus III who will help design the next iPhone which will contain a matter compiler and an ansible.
But I doubt it.
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most of those people I suspect thrive on ebay, they pick up a cheep used android phone to limp along, thats what my girlfriend did when her android phone died.
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most of those people I suspect thrive on ebay, they pick up a cheep used android phone to limp along, thats what my girlfriend did when her android phone died.
I heard she did something similar when she split up with her previous boyfriend
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Then Google screwed itself (Score:3)
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Put another way, if someone buys an Android device and doesn't browse the internet
I bought an Archos 43 Internet Tablet a year ago, when it was the closest thing to an iPod touch (Apple's pocket-size tablet) that Android had. It had handles browsing the Internet over Wi-Fi just fine, and apps that use Google's AdMob component still show ads. (They appear to update their ads whenever the device goes online.) It's just that Google wouldn't let Archos include the Market with this or other 8th gen devices, and Archos appears not to have announced a pocket-size 9th gen tablet yet.
Three-year head start (Score:3)
I bought an Archos 43 Internet Tablet a year ago
Samsung has a direct Android competitor to iTouch.
A year ago, there was no Galaxy Player. The Galaxy Player didn't come out until the fourth quarter of 2011, which gave the second-generation iPod touch a three-year head start among pocket-size tablets with access to the platform's largest app store.
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Actually the article is complete bullshit because Android is not no. 2, it is the most popular mobile OS.
This data includes tablets, where iOS holds a near-monopoly. It also includes iPods (the Touch).
Re:Just another... (Score:5, Interesting)
Android may have the highest market-share, but what the Article -- and several others done that have rather consistently said the same thing -- is that despite being #1 in number of phones, it has trailed significantly behind iOS in actual web browsing.
For whatever reason, though less people buy an iPhone, a significantly higher margin actually use their iOS device on the web. It is the #1 mobile platform for web browsing. Perhaps because iOS is more then iPhone by a large margin, but Android people tend to hate it when the iPod Touch or iPad are brought up and conflated with the iPhone (even though Apple people tend to view iPhone + iPad + iPod Touch as a single platform). Perhaps its just that iPhone users do use the web more. I have no idea.
But this is not at all an isolated report in that regard. Even Google has stated that about two thirds of their mobile ad revenue comes from the iPhone.
The J2ME thing is weird though and its the first time I've heard of it showing up at all in the top lists, so I dunno what's different about this report then others.
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Android people tend to hate it when the iPod Touch or iPad are brought up and conflated with the iPhone (even though Apple people tend to view iPhone + iPad + iPod Touch as a single platform).
I'm not sure I'm an "Android person," but the reason I dislike it when it's brought up is because it doesn't matter all that much and it's more of a distraction.
Take Q3 2011 as an example. According to Gartner [businessinsider.com], there were 60 million Android phones shipped and 17 million iPhones shipped. "But this doesn't include iPod touches and iPads!" you shriek. Fair enough--let's include them.
According to Apple, [apple.com] they shipped 11 million iPads and 6.62 million iPods. Now let's assume, just for laughs, that all of thos
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For whatever reason, though less people buy an iPhone, a significantly higher margin actually use their iOS device on the web. It is the #1 mobile platform for web browsing.
Probably because the iPhone is only available with data plans. You can buy an Android phone without data or on PAYG, in which case you probably won't be doing much browsing from it. That is always "problem" for Android when it comes to stats - since it covered the low spec and low cost end of the market as well as the high end comparing it to iOS is difficult. I put "problem" in quotes because it is of course one of Android's biggest strengths.
It is the only reasonable explanation since the Android browser
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JavaME 26.80%
iOS at 46.57%
But 60% of phones in the US are feature phones ...so do 6% of feature phones run iOS .... or are these figures made up ...
Android phones vastly outnumber iPhones, but are vastly outnumbered by non-smart phones ...
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This is not about installations, this is about web site views. In fact this is the most important data reliably available to use when determining smart phone market share. It's not quite as good as App installs, but those numbers are manipulated by the various manufacturers so can't be trusted. The reason is that what makes a phone a "smartphone" isn't really a device, it's the user's attitude to that device. If the user buys an iPhone and uses it for just phone calls, they may get the boyfriends, but t
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This is why I brought up the point that Android's going to catch up to iOS Six Months From Now.
People are buying Android but they're simply just not using Android devices like iOS users are. this is a problem with carriers, phone hardware vendors AND Google. People are buying these phones and just not giving a damn. OTOH, iOS users are actually engaging with their devices. This is poison for Android as an ecosystem.
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This is not about installations, this is about web site views.
Where does it say this is about web site views?
Re:Just another... (Score:4, Informative)
And the answer is "Where it says it's about measured browser usage data in the first line of the summary".
Or if you actually read the article (yeah. right - you couldn't even read the first line of the summary), click on any of the links in the table and select by browser.
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I would have thought slashdotters would know the difference between an OS and a platform. Honesty might let you get away with calling them custom linux phones but Java is a platform not an OS.
True. You might as well say the number of phones supporting html is more than iOs and android combined.
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There are several problems with the article, but this ain't one. You're looking at two different statistics. The first is based on web use, the second on market share. So if iPhones represent 20% of the market, but people who use them spend 75% more time on the web, then the discrepancy is explained. What this really means is that people who own iPhones spend more time on the Internet using their phones. I'm still confused about the numbers though. I can see why feature phones are so high; not many pe
Re: (Score:2)
Could be that Android users use more apps than web for various services.
Re: (Score:3)
Everyone I know speaks English, and I can count on one hand the number of people I personally know who speak Mandarin, so therefore I believe that the number of people who speak it compared to English is very low.
Any stats using actual data are completely fictional! My anecdotal evidence is totally representative!