comScore today released the results of its monthly rolling survey of U.S. mobile phone users for the November-January period, finding that Apple's smartphone marketshare rose 3.5 percentage points between October and January, up to 37.8% of both U.S. smartphone platform and hardware sales.
Samsung was second in hardware makers with 21.4%, up from 19.5% three months earlier. HTC and Motorola both experienced significant drops in market share, while LG gained slightly.
Google's Android was the largest smartphone platform with 52.3% of smartphone platform share, down from 53.6% three months ago. Android, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Symbian all lost share, to the benefit of Apple. As a result, Apple and Google control more than 87 percent of the smartphone market.
Notably, comScore's data tracks installed user base rather than new handset sales, making it more reflective of real-world usage but slower to respond to shifting market trends than some other studies.
Apple may have canceled the super scratch resistant anti-reflective display coating that it planned to use for the iPhone 17 Pro models, according to a source with reliable information that spoke to MacRumors.
Last spring, Weibo leaker Instant Digital suggested Apple was working on a new anti-reflective display layer that was more scratch resistant than the Ceramic Shield. We haven't heard...
Apple has completed Engineering Validation Testing (EVT) for at least one iPhone 17 model, according to a paywalled preview of an upcoming DigiTimes report.
iPhone 17 Air mockup based on rumored design
The EVT stage involves Apple testing iPhone 17 prototypes to ensure the hardware works as expected. There are still DVT (Design Validation Test) and PVT (Production Validation Test) stages to...
Apple will likely manufacture its 20th anniversary iPhone models in China, despite broader efforts to shift production to India, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
In 2027, Apple is planning a "major shake-up" for the iPhone lineup to mark two decades since the original model launched. Gurman's previous reporting indicates the company will introduce a foldable iPhone alongside a "bold"...
Wednesday April 30, 2025 3:59 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is preparing to launch a dramatically thinner iPhone this September, and if recent leaks are anything to go by, the so-called iPhone 17 Air could boast one of the most radical design shifts in recent years.
iPhone 17 Air dummy model alongside iPhone 16 Pro (credit: AppleTrack)
At just 5.5mm thick (excluding a slightly raised camera bump), the 6.6-inch iPhone 17 Air is expected to become ...
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch, which launched on April 24, 2015. Yesterday, we recapped features rumored for the Apple Watch Series 11, but since 2015, the Apple Watch has also branched out into the Apple Watch Ultra and the Apple Watch SE, so we thought we'd take a look at what's next for those product lines, too.
2025 Apple Watch Ultra 3
Apple didn't update the...
Wednesday April 23, 2025 8:31 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Tuesday April 29, 2025 3:36 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
All upcoming iPhone 17 models will come equipped with 12GB of RAM to support Apple Intelligence, according to the Weibo-based leaker Digital Chat Station.
The claim from the Chinese leaker, who has sources within Apple's supply chain, comes a few days after industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that the iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max will all be equipped with 12GB of RAM.
...
Tuesday April 29, 2025 1:30 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
I really don't think it's right to call android the largest "smartphone platform", because:
1. Really its "mobile platform" and when you look at the post-PC era, tablets, namely the iPad Market is a big chunk of mobil devices, and when you include these numbers- the iPad has really dominant share making iOS the dominant platform. Looking just at "smartphones" is selective reporting to try and exclude the market where Apple has had the most success, skewing the numbers in favor of android.
2. Android is hugely fragmented. iOS devices are mostly all running the latest iOS software and even ones that aren't can all run apps without modification. This is not true on android where covering %80 of the market requires changing your app to support 167!!! different devices.
3. I don't consider android to really be a platform, simply because it is so compromised. As a ripoff of iOS they had to rush it to market and in doing so compromised a lot of functionality.
4. Android is primarily sold to feature phone buyers as if it were a featurephone. These people walk in to get "a phone" and get sold android by the weenies at the carriers store... but they don't use them for apps or for even browsing the web, which is why the web stats on android are so pitiful. Android is really a feature phone operating system (hence the fragmentation and incompatibility)
5. You'd be just as correct to lump all the other Linux derivatives together and claim that there's a "linux smartphone platform".
6. We don't have real hard numbers for shipping devices for android. Amazon doesn't publish actual numbers. Google doesn't publish actual numbers. Samsung doesn't publish actual numbers. There's a lot of hype and BS claims that these devices are selling in huge numbers, but when samsung was forced to report actual sales in the lawsuit last year, it turns out that when journalists were claiming big sales the reality was pitiful. Most of these "sales" are actually non-android featurephones also sold by these companies who don't break them out because they want to seem more dominant than they are.
Get me real numbers reported in annual or quarterly reports that would result in an investigation by the SEC and charges of fraud if they were made up-- and use those.
Apple provides them. Until android manufacturers are willing to report the numbers under penalty of perjury like Apple does, they're just PR smoke, nothing more. (or analysts "projections")
These stats are being distorted by the propaganda of android fans who claim that it is a platform, and a smartphone platform at that and that it is dominant
Considering that there are only 6 iPhone models and at least 1000 Android phones I wouldn't say that 37.8% (iOS) to 52.3% (Android) is too bad of a margin
People use iPhones more because they last longer. It's not built from really poor quality plastic (ala Samsung). It's got software updates for at least twice or thrice as long as Android based devices (exception are Nexus devices). And let's not forget there are better quality apps on iOS in general. Oh and iOS is easier to use and the interface is consistent across multiple devices, multiple versions of the OS.
BTW - "rushed to market" ? Yeah - maybe MAYBE OS1.0 - but now? Not so much. ICS and JB weren't "rushed" no matter how much you really want to say it.
What functionality has been compromised in Android. Name some.
Your rationalization is hilarious.
Lastly - why so defensive and dismissive? Someone at Google kidnap a loved one?
I really don't think it's right to call android the largest "smartphone platform", because:
1. Really its "mobile platform" and when you look at the post-PC era, tablets, namely the iPad Market is a big chunk of mobil devices, and when you include these numbers- the iPad has really dominant share making iOS the dominant platform. Looking just at "smartphones" is selective reporting to try and exclude the market where Apple has had the most success, skewing the numbers in favor of android.
2. Android is hugely fragmented. iOS devices are mostly all running the latest iOS software and even ones that aren't can all run apps without modification. This is not true on android where covering %80 of the market requires changing your app to support 167!!! different devices.
3. I don't consider android to really be a platform, simply because it is so compromised. As a ripoff of iOS they had to rush it to market and in doing so compromised a lot of functionality.
4. Android is primarily sold to feature phone buyers as if it were a featurephone. These people walk in to get "a phone" and get sold android by the weenies at the carriers store... but they don't use them for apps or for even browsing the web, which is why the web stats on android are so pitiful. Android is really a feature phone operating system (hence the fragmentation and incompatibility)
5. You'd be just as correct to lump all the other Linux derivatives together and claim that there's a "linux smartphone platform".
6. We don't have real hard numbers for shipping devices for android. Amazon doesn't publish actual numbers. Google doesn't publish actual numbers. Samsung doesn't publish actual numbers. There's a lot of hype and BS claims that these devices are selling in huge numbers, but when samsung was forced to report actual sales in the lawsuit last year, it turns out that when journalists were claiming big sales the reality was pitiful. Most of these "sales" are actually non-android featurephones also sold by these companies who don't break them out because they want to seem more dominant than they are.
Get me real numbers reported in annual or quarterly reports that would result in an investigation by the SEC and charges of fraud if they were made up-- and use those.
Apple provides them. Until android manufacturers are willing to report the numbers under penalty of perjury like Apple does, they're just PR smoke, nothing more. (or analysts "projections")
These stats are being distorted by the propaganda of android fans who claim that it is a platform, and a smartphone platform at that and that it is dominant
