Verizon iPhone Will "Suck The Wind Out of Android's Growth"

iPhone advantage over Android: iPhone does not have Sense/Touchwiz/Motoblur or preinstalled nonremovable bloatware like Sprint NASCAR, Nova game demos, “footprints”, etc.

iphone is, literally, “so yesterday”. Android/Google have nothing to fear – the NEW stuff is ALL Android.

There is no mass deployment of LTE yet. Verizon has it in “select” cities, but that hardly accounts for a large percentage of their customer base. Google will be the ultimate loser when all is said and done.

Assuming HP/Palm launches some good products in a couple weeks, we could be looking at a shift in smartphone leaders. We could ultimately end up with iOS, WP7, and webOS leading the pack.

Also consider that HP, Apple, and Microsoft own patents related to mobile OSs and Apple and Microsoft have sued the mobile handset makers who use Android (or made them pay a large fee). At some point, HTC is going to decide its not worth paying Microsoft and Apple to put out an Android phone that has four different OS versions to choose from. Why deal with that headache when they already put out WP7 phones they could invest more into?

Google had a nice run, but their days are numbered. And it started yesterday at 10:00AM EST with Verizon and should continue on February 9 with HP.

Hahaha. Er, wait, you were serious? LOL

I don’t know that the ‘wind will be sucked out of Android’s growth on Verizon.’ You’ll certainly see a drop in purchases as people opt for the iPhone, but it’s not going to kill the Droid’s growth. And you will see migration from Droids to iPhones, but I think those people will find out there aren’t many huge differences.

When I compare my Droid X with my friends’ iPhones, they are practically the same phone. Same apps, same capabilities. My Droid does lack a front camera, so no face time for this girl, but that’s something I can live without. The one thing that the iPhone does have is the ‘cool’ factor I suppose – comes with Apple territory.

I’m a Christmas-given Droid chick, and I’ll be holding on to mine. ;)

Check the cities that Verizon targeted first for LTE! It is in some of the largest markets!
Android is becoming ubiquitous directly competes with the i-products globally today, and it is still growing globally. I say the sky is the limit for Android as long as Google stands behind it’s development.

Actually, I hear a lot of complaints coming from the Droid camp about app compatibility, viruses, etc… so ignorance isn’t necessarily bliss.

@John Paczkowski – Needed to up the readership a bit there, huh, John? ;)

The only two handset manufacturers who have Android OS on their handsets and have demonstrated they know how to market at all are Motorola and, possibly, HTC.
Marketing and brand awareness/equity is how you succeed with the mass market consumer as they move on the adoption curve.
Apple is the king of consumer marketing. Droid is misunderstood and under valued as a brand and concept by the general consumer market. Only the tech geeks, who chime in loudly here as Android fanboys, know Droid top of mind.
That spells doom for Droid and mass adoption.

how can you not lead with a quote like that?

Please list the 4G phones that Verizon sells today. Right now, 4G on Verizon is restricted to laptops. There will be LTE/4G phones eventually. Has Verizon actually announced an availability date?

“You’ll certainly see a drop in purchases as people opt for the iPhone, but it’s not going to kill the Droid’s growth.”

Does not compute.

WebM is not an open standard, H.264 is.

WebM is a royalty-free video codec and open source project. Unfortunately, the technology is owned and patented by Google. So, unless they plan on placing those patents into the public domain, it is not a truly “open” codec. And could be subject to royaties in the future as Google sees fit.

Even if that’s true, Verizon currently has half the smart phone users that AT&T has. If the iPhone can drive smart phone adoption rates up for Verizon, then you may still be correct, but that just means all new smart phones users will flock to the iPhone.

And, tell us what the battery life is for LTE handsets – The chips are yet to be optimized for low power consumption.
It took Verizon forever to roll out 3G, it will take an equally long time before LTE is usably widespread.

This is really the point, which is apparently lost on the previous poster. There won’t necessarily be mass defections of existing Android users to iPhone. Rather, many first-time smartphone buyers will, in large numbers go straight to iPhone instead of Android, and this will to some extent change the balance of Android vs. iPhone new subscriber growth.

What will be interesting is the size of this effect. I think it will be quite large, but we’ll see in a few months.

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines…

Both ChangeWave and Neilsen released reports with similar numbers showing that roughly 30% of current Android users want an iPhone as their next phone. You may not see that many people going from Android to iPhone, but the stats disagree.

First off, you’re making things up. There has been no official word from Apple about future iOS compatibility.

Second, the Android phone I bought less than a year ago can’t even be upgraded to Froyo (shipped with 2.1.) Let’s get Team Android updating its hardware past, say, 1 year old and then you can come in here and start slamming Apple.

@andrerichards.. Why does that sound like slamming Apple? Looks to me he was just giving examples as to why your previous statement is simply not true.

True.. But what remains to be seen is whether that drop will decrease the Android growth rate to the point where it will be lower than iOSes..

I agree. I can see Motorola & HTC losing 30 to 40% sales in the first three months.

But they will have an answer: Buy one, get two phones free.

Then Andy Rubin could go about bragging how 300,000 Android devices are activated every day.

Here’s what I say Andy: 300,000 activations/day * $0 per activation = $0 revenues.

Andy, how about them Apples????

??? Google gets $0 from the get go with activation so it’s no big loss.. You DO realize on the other hand that allowing Andy to say that is that much less potential iPhone subscribers right? And thus less ‘revenue’ for iOS since Apple does profit directly from activations.

Google gets it’s revenue from the ads, searches done on and usage of its systems. So in some part any searches done on Google is Google’s gain. You could say Andy is happy when ANY phone that can use a browser (and Google search or services) is activated (yes, even the iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad). Until iOS gets its own similar services and has everyone switch over to them (or forced to by Steve if he decides to cut off all Google related stuff), iOS devices will add to Google’s revenue stream.

That release probably depends on whether Apple decides to go with another iteration of iPhone 4 like they did with the iPhone 3G to 3GS.

In a similar note, I recently read a piece where they surveyed current AT&T iPhone subscribers and only 53% were going to be ‘loyal’ meaning they will stay where they will.. The other 47% can be assumed then to either defect to Verizon, purchase a better Android device on AT&T or simply go to another phone altogether. If what mjtomlin says is true about AT&T has double the smartphone subscribers than Verizon, it is reasonable to think that iPhone’s increase will not be quite as impressive as may be expected.