Apple retained its crown as the number one handset manufacturer among consumers in the U.S., while Google's Android operating system remained the number one platform, according to comScore's latest MobiLens and Mobile Metrix reports. These figures measure smartphone ownership and cover the three months ending January 2014.
Apple beat out rival Samsung with 41.6 percent market share as compared to Samsung's 26.7 percent. When comparing changes over the measured periods, Apple, Samsung and LG made small gains, while Motorola and HTC fell. Apple's market share continues to grow, but its rate of adoption is slowing.
Apple may be the top handset maker, but iOS is outnumbered by the volume of Android phones on the market. Apple's iOS platform was number two with 41.6 percent of the smartphone market, while Google's Android OS was number one with 51.7 percent market share in the recently ended period.
iOS was only the platform to gain ground in the three-month period, inching up from 40.6 percent in the period ending October 2013 to 41.6 percent in the most recent period. Android and BlackBerry lost ground, with each platform dropping 0.5 percentage points.
comScore measures both ownership and usage across a customer's primary smartphone and tablet. It uses an intelligent online survey as well as both panel and census-based measurement methods to compile its data.
while I find those numbers always very interesting - it is also amusing to look at different outlets reporting very different outcomes, always massaged to show what the core readership wants to read (or which message the author wants to send).
As usual, depending on how you look at the numbers, you can read almost anything in them, e.g. looking at manufactures vs OS vs devices (and even there it depends on what do you include in which group).
Bottom line: everyone is doing just fine, nobody is doomed and people have the choice and can buy devices based on there preferences and needs. So it is good news for everyone, even though many try to read bad news for some into it.
Could be that people who jumped ship just to try out Android are probably realizing that the grass isn't quite so greener on the other side and are slowly trickling back to iOS's great user experience, Apple's excellent customer service, and the richness of the App Store.
I jumped ship from android after 3 years, to ios (loving ios BTW), after getting sick of google being constantly in my face with Google+, eliminating drag&drop to SD, trying to do away with SD cards completely, doing away with privacy, taking away features with each update, and never ending lag issues. I hope to someday have a pure open source phone but until that day I guess I'll stay with ios. Google can go fsck themselves.
Wednesday April 17, 2024 9:58 am PDT by Juli Clover
Game emulator apps have come and gone since Apple announced App Store support for them on April 5, but now popular game emulator Delta from developer Riley Testut is available for download. Testut is known as the developer behind GBA4iOS, an open-source emulator that was available for a brief time more than a decade ago. GBA4iOS led to Delta, an emulator that has been available outside of...
Tuesday April 16, 2024 6:54 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Last September, Apple's iPhone 15 Pro models debuted with a new customizable Action button, offering faster access to a handful of functions, as well as the ability to assign Shortcuts. Apple is poised to include the feature on all upcoming iPhone 16 models, so we asked iPhone 15 Pro users what their experience has been with the additional button so far. The Action button replaces the switch ...
The lead developer of the multi-emulator app Provenance has told iMore that his team is working towards releasing the app on the App Store, but he did not provide a timeframe. Provenance is a frontend for many existing emulators, and it would allow iPhone and Apple TV users to emulate games released for a wide variety of classic game consoles, including the original PlayStation, GameCube, Wii,...
Wednesday April 17, 2024 12:19 pm PDT by Juli Clover
A decade ago, developer Riley Testut released the GBA4iOS emulator for iOS, and since it was against the rules at the time, Apple put a stop to downloads. Emulators have been a violation of the App Store rules for years, but that changed on April 5 when Apple suddenly reversed course and said that it was allowing retro game emulators on the App Store. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel ...
Tuesday April 16, 2024 11:33 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The first approved Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator for the iPhone and iPad was made available on the App Store today following Apple's rule change. The emulator is called Bimmy, and it was developed by Tom Salvo. On the App Store, Bimmy is described as a tool for testing and playing public domain/"homebrew" games created for the NES, but the app allows you to load ROMs for any...
Top Rated Comments
As usual, depending on how you look at the numbers, you can read almost anything in them, e.g. looking at manufactures vs OS vs devices (and even there it depends on what do you include in which group).
Bottom line: everyone is doing just fine, nobody is doomed and people have the choice and can buy devices based on there preferences and needs. So it is good news for everyone, even though many try to read bad news for some into it.
You win two apple pies for providing us with a random and stupid comment.
Android is not one thing. Android is not one vendor. Android is not compatible with Android.
iOS is one thing. iOS is all by Apple.
So, if we were to redo that chart in an honest manner it would be Apple at the top and way down below them would be all the little Android cloners.
I see iPhones, iPads and iPodTouches all around. I almost never see Androids.
I jumped ship from android after 3 years, to ios (loving ios BTW), after getting sick of google being constantly in my face with Google+, eliminating drag&drop to SD, trying to do away with SD cards completely, doing away with privacy, taking away features with each update, and never ending lag issues. I hope to someday have a pure open source phone but until that day I guess I'll stay with ios. Google can go fsck themselves.