Android OS pulls ahead of Apple in smartphone market

@Todd, Kai, countless other idiots: Google and the Android handset makers aren't giving their phones away to boost numbers, that's entirely up to the carriers. The carriers do it to boost SUBSCRIBERS. They could care less what phone you use. It's the same thing as when AT&T started subsidizing the iPhone to entice people over to their network. Oh, but it's different.... somehow.... You'd see the iPhone for even less if Apple would loosen their grip. It's not about trying to inflate statistics that only hopeless fanboys care about. It's about MAKING MONEY.

@ilky: I don't see how one thing you said actually addressed anything I said.

Yeah? All of the Driod phones will be irrelevant to everybody in about 2 months. That's what happens when you don't really make...a good phone. Android is good, but the phones it's on are simply disposable. Most Sprint/Verizon phones are.

The iPhone is still kicking ass 3 years later. My original iPhone is still kicking ass.

Not as many people are buying iPhones right now because they want to wait for the iPhone HD/4G to come out next month......duh http://www.macdaddynews.com/?p=2496

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_won_iPhone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_wins_iphone

@Beenyweenies - specs really mean a lot to you huh? are you going to play crysis on your android phone? are you going to replace the battery with 3 fresh ones your carrying around, while trying to load blocked content on hulu? oh and by the way - if you think there are 500,000 fart apps on the app store - look again, there are fantastic apps in the app store. tuaw does a good job highlighting them every week. isn't android marketplace 75% porn anyway?

specs don't mean squat... unless you plan to buy a new android phone every 3 months just so you can brag about it on tuaw comments section.

Android is such a crappy platform. I work for Sprint Service and Repair, and these devices come in with software issues like there's no tomorrow.

The software issues on Android almost rival Windows Mobile. The apps are just crappy and unstable. App and process 'killers' are popular and really do cause a lot of issues. Instability makes Android a subpar experience whereas iPhone OS is usually a problem-free experience.

Hard reset anyone?

@RidleyGriff

You're almost certainly wrong. The specs on the HTC Evo (possibly arriving the same week as the new iPhone) are guaranteed to be light years beyond what apple has planned:

• 8 Megapixel / 720P camera with dual LED flash
• 1.3 Megapixel front-facing camera
• 4G with the ability to use your phone as a wifi hub
• 1Ghz CPU
• Flash 10.1
• Up to 32GB cheap SD Card storage
• User replaceable battery

I love me some Apple, but Android is really gonna start giving them problems if they don't rethink their strategy. When phones like the Evo hit the market, people are going to really question whether a store with 500,000 fart apps is worth all the areas where Apple tries to ream them (storage, battery etc) and the areas where Apple locks them into a narrow ecosystem with little proven benefit (no Flash, intentional feature-withholding, app store lock-in, Apple sole source of everything).

I may even sell my 3Gs to get the Evo, those specs are just way too enticing, and Apple's really pissing me off these days.

Has anyone else seen the relationship between iPhone OS/Android and Mac OS/Windows, or is it just something not discussed?

Seriously.
Mac OS came out first, only for Apple branded hardware. Then Windows appeared and eventually overtook Mac OS in market share because of it's freedom to be installed on anything.

iPhone OS came out first, only for Apple Branded hardware. Then Android appeared and eventually overtook iPhone OS in market share because of it's freedom to be installed on anything.

@Joanna. Actually, Joanna, you are usually smarter than this. Android can't even get copy/paste to work in all of its applications...

go read some android user forums and look at the frustration levels of people who can't copy/paste to google mail! it's hilarious.

Yes, if living life under the whims of a fractured, riddle-ridden life of "doesn't" is "best", then have all the android you want.

I'll stick with my iPhones and iPad because they "do" and "do well"

@Christopher. A lot of things don't work that Android says it does. Copy/Paste across any application is a great example. Android says it has copy/paste, but it is a half-arse attempt to get a marketing label on the bullet points. First, it only works, IF the particular application supports it, and then it doesn't work half the time.

Also, which version of android are you talking about? Most of the people with android phones can't run the latest versions of Android, even if Verizon ever lets them download firmware.

Android is WinMo wrapped up in a prettier new box. Everybody says it can do all this great stuff, but nobody can seem to get it to work. And even if they get it to work, it's too much trouble. Just look at the user forums for those phones -- it's like Win 3.1 all over again.

Keep cheering for android, it needs the moral support and Verizon subsidies!