Via Johan Larsson's photostream.
The two major players in this battle thus far are Apple and Google. Each player has some clear advantages and disadvantages.
(1) Apple Has The Initiative:
The largest advantage that Apple enjoys is… They were the first company to get it right. The iPhone gave people a REAL BROWSER and was a huge success right off the bat. This gave Apple the early initiative in the battle. Apple seems to currently enjoy the largest marketshare of the mobile web.
(2) Apple’s Product has Been Rock Solid: (current antenna issues withstanding)
The second advantage is the Apple makes both the software and the hardware. Just like with their computers apps that are made to work on the iPhone or iPad just work.
Both Google and Microsoft making software and telling hardware manufacturers “To run our software you need to do X,Y, and Z.” How the hardware manufactures do X,Y, and Z is up to them… as a result there are several different configurations as opposed to Apple’s one (rock solid) configuration.
The fact that Microsoft is getting into the battle for the mobile web late is interesting… Maybe they just wanted to see what Apple and Google did, and how customers responded before launching their own prodeuct. Maybe. But I don’t think so, my guess is that they just missed the bus.
However, if Microsoft’s product has a good price point, and the device / softwear combo is solid than they have a shoot at being a real player. If their price point sucks and/or their product is anything less than solid (see Windows Vista) they will have spent lots of time and money to fail.
(3) Apple’s Closed “Control Freak” System:
Apple’s product being so solid is largly a result of the fact that they make the hardware and the software, but it is also the result of something that I personally see as a negative of their approach: that they are a closed system. i.e., All apps must pass through the Apple gatekeeper to be “approved” to be in the app store.
This limits their developers and, unless their iPhone had been “jail broken“, their customer’s choices.
I was going to count this as one of the advantages that Android had going for it, but after reviewing the information I see that Apple’s app store still has more choices in it than the Android app stores (notice Apple’s singular “store” and Android plural “stores). And I believe that, in addition to having just more apps, Apple also has more high quality apps than the Android stores.
(4) Android is Open: (Softwear, Hardware, and Carrier).
This is huge. Open systems might have a hard time getting going, but they have a way of catching up to and eventually surpassing closed systems. It is the wisdom of the crowd.
Android is not only open from a development prespective, it is also open from a hardware prespective. Thus Android’s ability to be run on so many different devices on more than one carrier will provide it with larger and larger market share as time goes on.
As I stated earlier: If Microsoft gets its act together with Windows Phone 7 , Google might have something to worry about. However, Google’s lead in the mobile web arena is going to be at least as difficult for Microsoft to catch up to as it has been for Android to catch up with Apple’s lead.
(5) Summing It All Up:
Apple has the lead, at least for now due to the fact that they got into this game first and went above and beyond what anyone had done thus far when they introduced the iPhone. In effect, they set the bar, and everyone has been trying to clear that bar, which has forced the other companies to play catch up.
Android is an open system that Apple needs to be afraid of. True, it might be a bit jankie as of this writing, but it gets more and more solid with every new build that comes out.
In addition to this, Android keeps gaining marketshare as it becomes an option for customers on more and more hardware and more carriers, while Apple’s iOS remains only on one device (the iPhone) on one (really shitty) carrier (AT&T).
For Apple to keep their lead they will need to push inovation, and not make any (more) mistakes.
Microsoft has yet to show us what they can do. As a company, Microsoft has a ton riding on Windows Phone 7, so if they bone this (and for the record I hope they don’t), they will take a major hit. If Microsoft really knocks this one out of the park it could be the start of a huge comeback for the company. (Yes it would be a “comeback” because they have been getting their asses kicked by Apple and Google for a few years now).
