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iPhone -v- Android: It isn’t even Close

Posted December 15, 2008 8:23 AM by Chris Seibold
Categories: Android Applications Development 

imageIntuitively you know that iPhone hasn’t felt any real heat from the G1 but intuition s frequently wrong, things have a way of sneaking up on you and suddenly you’re like “Wow, I never realized that product X had come so far!”

So what objective measure can be used to judge the relative success of the G1 (and Android in general) against the iPhone. The oDesk Blog has some nifty analysis up of how the G1 is faring compared to the iPhone. The metric used? Number of job postings for developers. If you just glance at the graphs without reading the verbiage you might think that the iPhone is only doing a little better. That impression is misleading, postings for iPhone developers are an order of magnitude greater (scaling between graphs can be tricky).

With a disparity like that you can see why Apple isn’t exactly running scared of Android.

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Comments

  1. While I agree that number of job postings is a good indicator of relative support the two OS’s have among businesses, the analysis in the referenced report doesn’t take into account the release dates for the iPhone vs. the G1. Considering the G1 has only been released for less than two months, there just hasn’t been enough time to tell whether Android will cut into Apple’s market.

    Posted by Wyatt on December 15, 2008 11:47 AM

  2. I’d just like to point out that using the number of posted jobs for development is completely insignificant when discussing an open source platform. Anyone can develop applications for Android (after the $25 fee). If you look carefully most current applications under development for Android are private projects.

    Posted by Sean Duffy on December 15, 2008 12:49 PM

  3. I had the iPhone.  I returned it.  Finally, the lack of a physical keyboard just became a deal breaker.  I bought the G1 not really expecting too much and expecting it to be quite inferior to the iPhone.  To my surprise, I love it - more than the iPhone.  It’s much better in hand than it looks in pictures.  From a hardware perspective, apart from the keyboard, Apple doesn’t need to be worried about the G1.  But it should be very worried about the Android.

    Posted by TS on December 15, 2008 1:21 PM

  4. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that the iphone is better simply because they have more job postings.  That’s like saying that hp is better than SONY becaue they have more job postings.

    The G1 is the first and probably will be one of the worst Android phones in history.  Android is due to take a chunk of the market next year and I wouldn’t be surprised if the G1 only made up 10% of theat Android market share.

    Posted by Nick on December 15, 2008 5:15 PM

  5. I wouldn’t argue that the iPhone is better than the G1 or android simply because it is more popular. Popularity, in my experience, is not an accurate reflection of value.

    I would, however, contend that the iPhone’s popularity makes it (for now) a safer bet for developers and software companies. That advantage won’t last forever but, for now, there’ much more impetus to tell everyone the iPhone is great than telling everyone android and G1 are great.

    Posted by Chris Seibold on December 15, 2008 9:46 PM

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