So after weeks of whispers and the lost/forgotten/whatever iPhone leaks, Apple finally revealed the new iPhone and iOS 4. And like that, the tennis match between Apple and Google continues. It’s Sampras and Agassi all over again.
Agassi marries Brooke Shields.
Sampras marries Billy Madison’s hot teacher.
Agassi cuts off his mullet.
Sampras, well, never had a mullet of his own, but responds by winning eleven of the next seventeen head-to-head matchups.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
How will the Android respond? At this point of the mobile match, Apple and Google’s App stores are on Centre Court with everyone else essentially on the sidelines, watching these two battle it out.
Apple’s App store has been the Studio 54 of its time, as everyone with an app wanted in. Sometimes Apple allows you past the velvet rope, while other times they ask you to change your shoes and the color of your belt and to try again. Meanwhile, the Android Market is the newer club that opened up down the road and boasts that it won’t turn you away for wearing that piano keys tie. The problem though, is that sometimes you’re stuck amongst those wearing piano key ties. Even despite this, Apple’s store boasts more than 200,000 apps to Android’s 50,000. But still, the Android continues to grow at a fast pace.
Now, during his keynote address last week, Steve Jobs reported that for mobile browser usage, iPhone has a 58% market share. This compares to less than half that – or just under 27% – for the Android. Of course, the iPhone had more than one year head-start on the Android platform.
Make no mistake, Apple is winning the war right now, between the two.
But Android continues to put up the biggest fight, even winning one of its battles earlier this year when it outsold iPhones in Q1 of 2010. Each side has their loyal, dedicated backers. They won’t decide the victor. It will be the “regular” consumer who doesn’t have a fanatical allegiance to either, but wants the smart phone that does more of the things they want and need them to do.
How Apple and Google react and respond to those, will determine whether the Android continues to accumulate more and more set-wins, or if the iPhone eventually wins the match.
Bruce is a Mobile Media Specialist at Roll Mobile. He is a lover of good music, bad puns and ugly sweater vests. Want to learn more about adding mobile components to complement your existing marketing strategies? Or have a BLOG@ROLL topic you’d like us to explore?
Contact bruce@whyroll.com or on Twitter via @RollMobile.