Linked List: April 3, 2011

Sunday, 3 April 2011

Henry Blodget on ComScore Smartphone Market Share Data: ‘iPhone Dead in Water’ ★

The iPod Touch and iPad don’t count, apparently.

Marco Arment on Fred Wilson’s Android-First Advice ★

Marco Arment:

We’re talking about Android… which has terrible development economics hindered by severe fragmentation and poor payment integration, and is not generally used by most of the influential people needed to spread the word on new services.

Android First? ★

Fred Wilson:

Roughly six months ago, I put up a blog post suggesting Android was going to be the dominant mobile phone operating system and that developers interested in the largest user bases ought to start developing for it in preference to iOS.

Who took his advice six months ago and had any success with that strategy?

ComScore’s February mobile numbers are out and here’s where things stand in terms of OS market share in the US.

No, ComScore’s numbers are for smartphone market share, not OS market share. ComScore’s numbers do not include the iPod Touch or the iPad.

But as I’ve been saying for several years now, I believe the mobile OS market will play out very similarly to Windows and Macintosh, with Android in the role of Windows. And so if you want to be in front of the largest number of users, you need to be on Android.

Something makes me think Wilson will be giving the same advice again six months from now, and yet the list of companies that have succeeded with an Android-first or Android-only development schedule will remain negligible.