Obviously, if not for google Android OS, we won’t have all the plethora of innovative smartphones that we currently have. Apple would have continued to bestride us like a colossus(same way Nokia did for a couple of years). Who knows, maybe if not for google android, a poor man like me wouldn’t use a good smartphone. In this article, I would be giving the chronicles of how android broke the monopoly of apple.
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The Journey of how Android Broke the Monopoly of Apple
When the Android system launched in September 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs became very angry.
“If I can, I will use my last breath and every penny of Apple to correct this mistake,” he told the biographer Walter Isaacson. At the time, there was a mobile operating system called Android (Android), which is a free operating system developed by Google. Smartphone manufacturers can build it into a variety of phones that look like an iPhone. And it can run like an iPhone.
Under Steve Jobs’s leadership, Apple tried to sue Android’s so-called “plagiarism” on the iPhone. The CEO was quite frank about his purpose. In the “Roar” of 2010, there is one of the most classic content: “I want to destroy Android.”
But thankfully, Jobs did not achieve the goal in the courts and in the market. It can be said that if there is no Android, the smartphone will never develop to this extent. This is an extraordinary technology, mainly limited to the relatively affluent regions of the world, just like the previous personal computers. At the same time, smartphones represent a new branch of technological evolution and a major driver of networking across the world.
The role of Samsung in the Smartphone Revolution Using Android OS
Samsung has just released its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Note 10. About half of the world’s population now has at least one smartphone or similar product. Few other types of consumer electronics have achieved this goal in such a period of time. Although Apple’s iPhone has revolutionized modern smartphones, Android is the main driver for smartphones everywhere.
Maybe even if Android has never appeared, it will happen. But it’s more likely that smartphones and the Internet will take longer to develop to the present day, and applications and tools may only stay at a relatively low level.
Think about it. When Steve Jobs published his anger against Android, the iPhone accounted for 15% of the world’s 175 million smartphone sales in the previous year. When the time fasts forwards to 2018, Apple still has a market share of about 15%, but the total global sales of smartphones have rapidly increased to 1.4 billion. More than 80% of these new devices use Android.
Factors that Contributed to the Development of Android
In fact, there are mainly three forces that have contributed to the development of the Android system. First, Google is responsible for providing software and services.
Secondly, the continued efforts of Korean electronics giant Samsung.
Lastly, the impact of China and Chinese smartphone manufacturers which have brought cheap products that can change the lives of ordinary people along with rapid economic development. These three forces have jointly created an unprecedented technological change, and one of the problems that can not be ignored for the success of Android is that it is still chaotic, both initially and now.
With the rise of Android, the three forces have begun to seriously consider the unfavourable factors that come with it. Although Android won, Apple is making its own “retaliation” as companies compete to plan for a future outside of smartphones. The way Apple controls the ecosystem, it’s often easy to decide where to go in the future, whether it’s autonomous cars or virtual reality glasses that offer an immersive experience. And we may never see anything new like Android.
What does Google tend to gain for launching a free opensource operating system
From today’s point of view, we can easily think that the popularity of smartphones is the result of destiny, but usually, only very optimistic technology predictors will predict today when Google acquired Android. The situation. After the Apple iPhone hit our perception like a bomb in 2007, Google also began to work hard to make its open-source mobile operating system free for all major smartphone manufacturers. In return, Google can bundle its lucrative online advertising business with most phones running Android.
During this time, many key industry decisions were driven by “fear”. Manufacturers such as Motorola initially did not have a convincing response to Apple’s design and worried that they might be eliminated by the market. (Ultimately many people have been proven to be right in this fear). And Google itself has worried that Apple, Microsoft or other companies will dominate the young smartphone market, shutting Google’s search engine out, or making it obsolete in some way.
Android seems to be the most succinct solution to all of these problems, or at least it is very anxious. “Google does open a door,” said Ryan Reith, vice president of market research firm IDC.
Picture Showing the Development of Different Technologies in American Families.
With Android, any mobile phone manufacturer can produce a product that is very similar to the iPhone. And if you want, you can further customize it before you make it your own brand.
Also, companies that make video games, ring tones, and other mobile software no longer need to make a lot of changes to a large number of proprietary operating systems. Mobile operators have more customers willing to pay higher prices, helping these companies to recover billions of dollars in investment.
At the end of 2008, the first Android devices entered the market 18 months after the launch of the iPhone. They are cumbersome and not immediately popular. But as time went by, technology and products became better, and the beginning of an Android campaign began to take root in 2009. Mobile phone industry pioneer Motorola and the relatively newer HTC have subsequently launched quite popular Android phones. Samsung has taken its Android products to another level.
First Samsung Android Phone Ever
Samsung Galaxy is the first Android phone launched by the Korean electronics giant. When the iPhone went on the market, Samsung was the world’s second-largest mobile phone manufacturer, second only to Nokia. In the first round of the iPhone boom, the Korean manufacturer was indeed caught off guard.
At that time, many people lined up at the door of the Apple retail store or spent hundreds of dollars on eBay to buy iPhone shopping bags. Then Samsung saw that Android began to gain some appeal. When you are in force, you have invested more experience. Samsung began to produce a series of dazzling Android phones, each with different prices and different functions. In South Korea and other parts of Asia.
Furthermore, Samsung began to promote its Galaxy Note series of large-screen mobile phones, which have become the global trend leader. In the United States since 2011, Samsung began to invest huge advertising costs in TV commercials and even jokes with iPhone users to ridicule Apple users for blind loyalty.
To ridicule competitors, Samsung has tried to gain a foothold in the US market through huge advertising investment, but it has also worked. Two years after the announcement of full support for Android, Samsung surpassed Apple to become the world’s largest smartphone maker, accounting for about one-fifth of total sales. According to data from Counterpoint Research, the Korean electronics giant accounted for nearly a third of the market in the booming smartphone market the following year.
Samsung’s success has benefited the entire Android Alliance. In 2012, sales of Android phones reached six times that of two years ago and doubled that of the iPhone 4. Court tribunals between Android vendors such as Apple and Samsung have also begun. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that Android is winning and pushing smartphones to a wider range of global users.
China is another contribution to the development of Android. Economic growth has driven the phenomenal development of the high-speed mobile Internet across the country. Before the booming urban class was attracted by Apple, Samsung was originally a strong company in China, but the biggest winners were local Chinese smartphone companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi.
The following picture shows the global smartphone usage by country.
As the most populous country in the world, China has skipped the development of personal computers for a whole generation and turned to the rapid development of smartphones. According to UN data, in 2005, less than 10% of China’s population used the Internet. The latest data shows that in 2017 this proportion was 54%. Almost everyone in the 800 million people is using a smartphone to surf the Internet instead of a computer. Apple has also achieved success in China, but of the smartphones sold in China, 9 out of every 10 use Android.
According to Counterpoint Research, in India, the fastest-growing major smartphone market, Android devices accounted for 99% of total sales, while KaiOS, which is very similar to Android, is the second-generation Android mobile phone. Apart from China and India, this model is repeated around the world. Although the iPhone is very good, Android has the largest market share, making smartphones become the mainstream tool in the world like never before.
Mobile operating system market share
Last year, smartphone sales were more than nine times that of 2008, and 2008 was the second year of the iPhone. The annual sales of smartphones reached 25 billion units in 25 years.
The Apparent Downsides of Google Android in Comparison to iOS
Of course, Android also has its downside, because of the core three forces and the rest of the world. For more than a decade, Internet-connected mobile devices have been exciting, eliminating barriers, allowing instant delivery of information and connecting people with different perspectives.
Samsung and other Android partners are increasingly seeking to get rid of Google’s shackles, pre-installing their own applications or software features into the system to replace Google’s services.
For Google’s parent company, Alphabet, the Android tradition has become increasingly confusing. Last year, after a long investigation, the EU regulator announced that Google provides the Android system free of charge, but with mandatory conditions, in violation of the EU anti-monopoly law. The EU also imposed a huge fine on Google because Google hides its competitors, gives priority to displaying its online shopping services, and undermines the competition for Internet search advertising. Google is appealing to the above three actions.
According to the rapid development of the technology industry, smartphones have actually entered middle age. According to IDC’s forecast, global smartphone sales will decline for the third consecutive year in 2019. And there are still huge gaps between 50% of mobile Internet users worldwide and 80%-90% of analysts predicting that they will reach their peak. However, it is getting harder to reach the next goal of 3.5 billion to 4 billion people. Even the Android system can’t push the price of mobile phones low enough to meet the needs of users in certain regions and regions where smartphones are not yet widely available.
Since many companies are beginning to bet on products other than smartphones, Android or Android-like systems are likely to no longer play a major role. But in a future where wireless connectivity is so fast and cheap, the Internet can be embedded in every car, office chair, thermostat, virtual reality device and glasses, and as a small device in the digital world access point may not be so important. The largest cloud computing platforms, driverless cars and voice control digital assistants are proprietary systems, not open alliances like Android. Key developers such as Alphabet are betting that in fact, acting alone is more beneficial to them.
Final Thoughts on how Android broke the Monopoly of Apple iOS
There is another example in this regard. Although Apple has only a small share of the global smartphone market, it has captured most of the profits of smartphone makers, and loyal iPhone users buy billions of dollars of Apple’s additional hardware, applications and Internet services every year.
Therefore, when Google’s operating system covers the world, Jobs’s philosophy may also win in the next generation of products. Good or bad, the future we want may not be like Android, a technology that is open but not easy to control and covers the whole world.
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