The smartphone race has been on for a few years now and Apple and Google are at each other´s throats. The FCC stepped in recently to settle a dispute Apple purportedly had with a Google Voice application. Read more on the hot smartphone popularity competition here in this article.
The open warfare between those jostling for the position over the world of mobile devices is far from over. It is possible it is just the beginning. The hostilities extended as far as the FCC when Apple failed to approve a Google app. Apple claimed it took over too much of their system. Eventually, Google won, and the app was allowed on the iPhone.
Now it appears that Google is also gaining in the world of mobile operating systems. The people at Quantcast are reporting that the Google creation called Android has 25 percent of the mobile web consumption market. This is a 17 percent uptick from twelve months ago for the search engine company. For the home team, Apple, they have 56 percent of the mobile web consumption. Do they need to worry ? ? It may be too early to tell.
The information here does not include all the other players on the field of mobile development. Blackberry, Nokia, and Samsung all make their own brand of the operating system. Nokia easily beats all the others in the number of units sold. Nokia recently bought out the most popular mobile operating system in the world; Symbian. After the purchase, they immediately made it free to the world as an open source product. It was a strategic move and one to watch in the future.
But for Apple and Google to scrap for the United States market seems to be the prevailing wind at this point. With just over 300 million in population and around 82 percent of those using a cell phone, it is a choice market to want to rule. One of the Asian competitions just put out a great smartphone called the Galaxy S. No less than five major US carriers is running their versions of this Samsung phone. It happens to be using the Android 2.1 system and able to be upgraded to 2.2. Apple may have some catching up to do soon on speed.
Research in Motion, the makers of the Blackberry series of smartphones have notoriously had a less than a tolerable presence in their web browsers. They also recently upgraded and fixed that same problem with OS 6. They now run the same Webkit browser that most considered to be one of the more superior browsers available. This could result in Blackberry devices rising in web access very easily. As recently as four months ago Blackberry was voted the United States consumer favorite for the favorite operating system. That was before the change to OS 6.
Remember this article started out talking about web consumption not overall device popularity. The people at Apple have been the undisputed leader in this area for a long time. Now they are getting competition. Do not look for much to change in the web access area within the next year. Android will rise, but Apple will find a way to protect their position. Apple is the undisputed leader when it comes to popularity. This will keep them afloat on an extended time. It is hard to beat the underdog. In fact, it may be impossible.
