Ina Fried

Recent Posts by Ina Fried

Is the iPhone Getting a Second Wind in Battle Versus Android?

Although Apple has gone a year with no new iPhone, a recent survey shows the phone gaining ground versus Android, at least in the U.S.

The most recent survey from Nielsen shows that among recent smartphone buyers Apple has been increasing share, although total Android usage still outpaces the iPhone.

“Android continues to be the most popular smartphone operating system, with 38 percent of smartphone consumers owning Android devices,” Nielsen found. However, while Android also leads among those who recently purchased a new smartphone, it is the Apple iPhone that has shown the most growth in recent months.

This comes despite a recent tweet from Android head Andy Rubin noting that the company is now seeing 500,000 Android devices activated around the world each day, up from a rate of 400,000 per day a month ago.

It will be interesting to see how these numbers shape up over the next few months. Apple is widely expected to debut new hardware this fall along with iOS 5, while Android is gearing up for the Ice Cream Sandwich release and Microsoft is readying a new crop of Windows Phones based on the Mango update to the operating system. According to Nielsen, Windows Phone 7 purchases still account for just about one percent of recent phone buys.

Overall, of course, the trend toward smartphones and away from simpler devices continues unabated. Nielsen said that 55 percent of those who bought a handset in the past three months bought a smartphone, as compared with just over a third of new phone buyers a year ago.

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Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge.

— Author Tim Kreider on not getting paid for one’s work