By Today’s awesome Android keynote kicked off with some pretty amazing figures. If you didn’t think you could get more excited about the ever-increasing presence of Android, think again. Along with reaffirming the fact that Android now sits at second place in US smart phone sales (above the iPhone and below RIM), Vic Gundotra announced that Android is currently seeing 100,000 new activations per day. That astounding number meshes well with the top share of mobile advertising reported by AdMob.
The 50,000 apps in the market (worked on by over 180,000 developers) number was also tossed around, all but solidifying Androids place as the top emerging smartphone platform. Do we have to mention the countless OEMs and carriers bringing Android phones to the masses? (Over 60 Android phones if you were wondering). How about over 1 billion miles navigated through Google Navigation?
Google is clear on a path for smartphone domination, especially with the newly announced Froyo additions, and the iPhone is in Android’s sights. A lot of the figures already spell out victory, and the new features easily surpass what was announced for iPhone 4.0. Today’s press conference was Android’s coming of age, it no longer is the trailing competitor, but in fact a viable threat.
someone please post a link to TODAY’s Keynote, i have no clue what was discussed android wise, and apparently phandroid doesn’t care to share, just some pictures :( come one guys at least some highlights of anticipated events should be posted
@Covert – go to the google i/o site and look at the waves for all the info.
What details came out about Froyo???
I’m in the market to get a smartphone when my Verizon upgrade / contact expiration come up here in about 6 weeks. I’ve been getting by with an iPod Touch for the past six months or so. I’ve been weighing at a number of options: trying to get an early upgrade and getting an Incredible, dropping Verizon and getting an iPhone, holding out for a Verizon iPhone, etc. The longer I wait to spring on this, the more and more I realize the limitations of the Apple platform, given that I’m experiencing many of them on the iTouch, and the huge potential that Android has. Though the iPhone may be the present, I’m convinced that Android is the future of smartphones. It is just a matter of time before Android zooms past the iPhone in every conceivable way. I would rather trade the polish of the iPhone for the huge upside of Android, particularly if I’m going to be stuck with whatever device I get for a year and a half plus on a family plan.
Ugh, no Froyo release date yet? Damn you Google for making me wait!!
From pictures on the other post I saw:
Apps to SD
Tethering/HotSpot
SPEED!!!
Cloud-To-Device API
Enterprise Features: exchange, Admin APIs
App Search
Auto Updating
Not a bad list – am I missing anything???
I think Froyo is basically imminent. Now its about the manufacturers
Andy – Flash 10.1 support. Full access to video on the web.
Where’s Symbian? Unless the US market is *very* different from the global market, there is no way Symbian is part of that little “other” slice.
Global smartphone sales by OS:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/05/smartphone_wars_android_hot_wi.html
The US market *is* very different.
Quboid: Symbian has a very minor presence here in the U.S. Always has. They’ve never been able to really crack the market here for a number of reasons. Nokia took a couple of half-hearted swings at it, but the limitations of Symbian itself really prevented any penetration.
What about the new Marketplace? Did anybody else see that during the keynote? Was it for devs only, or will it be made available to all consumers? It was just like the Apple App Store and in many ways better. Why is nobody else talking about this?
@Quboid – Um, hate to point out the obvious, but this chart is referencing smartphones, not feature phones. Symbian is not considered a smartphone OS, at least not in this country, and is primarily found on cheap feature phones, and has recently started creeping onto multimedia phones like the Samsung Rogue. In terms of all cell phones worldwide, Symbian actually owns a substantial amount of market share. I believe they’re #1 or #2 in terms of all cell phone market share, worldwide. But as Nick stated, Symbian is not a very popular option here, and with the rate at which consumers are upgrading to smartphones, I’m sure their market share in the US is dropping as we speak.
I didn’t know android beat out iphone.
Well as long as Android phones are more expensive and have shite battery life I’ll be sticking with Symbian
BTW I live in Ireland, EU and Symbian is the largest smartphone player by a fair bit here in the EU
Know what would make Android even better? If all were embedded with UMA/GAN! Some people started an open source page where you can vote if you want Google to UMA enable Android operating system. That would mean Android owners could make calls over Wi-Fi. It would allow Android phones to really compete with BlackBerries. Go vote!
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6242&colspec=ID Type Status Owner Summary Stars