2014-09-11

The World is going "all in" on Android as The Mobile OS

IDC: Smartphone OS Market Share 2013, 2012, and 2011 Chart

Notwithstanding Apple's announcements on Tuesday, Steve Jobs is probably rolling over in his grave--his greatest fear is coming true (above).

And Android fragmentation is not a problem--

It’s 2014, and Android fragmentation is no longer a problem — Tech News and Analysis: "... Play Services is more important than OS installs when planning and designing an Android app. Play Services, introduced in 2012, is effectively a background download of core services required to run apps on Android. Putting the OS install numbers t o one side for a moment, this is the stat that matters to developers – over 93 percent of all Android users are running the latest version of Google Play Services...."

All of this has ramifications for the domain name industry. On mobile right now, apps rule--not the mobile web. The Google Android ecosystem, although not a walled garden to the extent of  Apple, nonetheless has utilized Google Play Services to cure fragmentation and provide a protective "moat" to promote the Google Android experience. The Chrome browser on Android, with its capabilities in HTML 5, may be of significant importance to advance use of websites and web applications in place of native apps on mobile devices in the future. Ultimately, the decline of native apps, and the rise of the mobile web, will favor Google and its various services, including its core offering of search and Google advertising.





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