If you thought Google Android and Apple iOS butted heads in 2010, wait until you see what they do in 2011. And, see where both have weaknesses that could be exploited.
Throughout 2010 there were escalating tensions between Google Android and Apple iOS, as the two platforms emerged as the rising superpowers in the mobile world. But, if you thought things were heated between them last year, then as the saying goes, you ain't seen nothing yet. These two ecosystems are on course for a massive collision in 2011 and the stakes are about to get a lot higher.
The arrival of the iPhone on Verizon is a major incursion into what had previously become Android territory. Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" (the tablet OS) is about to unleash an army of Android tablets in a full frontal assault on the iPad. There is going to be blood, but as my colleague Larry Dignan notes, the carnage is likely going to have a greater impact on the other competitors in the mobile market more than on Apple and Google themselves.
To help evaluate the race between Android and iOS in 2011, I'd like to approach it from the perspective of where the two platforms are vulnerable. That will help give us an idea of where they might go after each other and where upstarts may try to challenge them.
Weak spots for iOS
For the iPhone and iPad the number one draw is ease of use. Your toddler and your grandmother (the one who is intimidated by computers) can both pick up one of these devices and figure out how to use it. As Jerry Pournelle says, with Apple products "everything is either very simple or it's utterly impossible." The utterly impossible side is where we find Apple's first weak spot.
Weak spots for Android
The best thing about Android is that its Open Handset Alliance includes some of the biggest and best vendors in the mobile world, including Samsung, Motorola, HTC, LG, Dell, Sony-Ericsson, and many more. The Android partners make devices in all shapes and sizes and in virtually every iteration you can imagine. That's also part of the problem.
How will it turn out?
In the smartphone market, you have to wonder how well these two will be able to market against each other to exploit their weaknesses. The two are fairly well solidified in people's minds. Unless more people get sick of being locked into the iTunes ecosystem on iPhone (no sign of that yet) or get fed up with the crapware and delayed updates with Android (only a few instances where the masses have noticed), then the 2010 growth trajectory of both platforms will likely hold.
The game is a little more wide open in tablets. Companies like ASUS are targeting Apple's weak spots in productivity and hardware choices. Hewlett-Packard could combine its long experience in tablet hardware with Palm's webOS to create a tablet with much better multi-tasking and business features than Android and iOS. But, again, Apple has a big lead here and Google's tablet OS that it showed off at CES looked very impressive and there are already a lot of big hardware vendors that have lined up to use it.
The bottom line is that both Android and iOS are going to be wildly successful in 2011 and continue to gobble up mobile marketshare. In most cases, it won't come at the expense of each other, although we should expect Apple to initially steal some Android sales on Verizon and Android will eat away at some iPad sales when its first wave of tablets hit the ground in the spring.
Nevertheless, there will be a ton of new customers coming into the market in both smartphones and tablets in 2011. Look for Google and Apple to dominate most of the new sales in both of those markets. That will keep both Android and iOS on major growth trajectories. Android will have a lot more devices and a lot more companies pushing its devices, so it will ultimately grab greater market share in smartphones, although Apple is very competitive on price (unlike in the Mac vs. PC battles of 1980s and 1990s) so it won't just be relegated to the high end of the market. It will take a much larger chunk of market share than it did in the PC wars.
And, in tablets, Apple is out to a huge lead with the surprising success of the iPad. Android and others will start to eat into that cushion in 2011, but Apple will still command a majority of that market by the end of the year.
What about Microsoft, HP, BlackBerry, and Nokia?
Unfortunately, it looks like all four of these behemoths are on the wrong side of history. These guys are all going to be reduced to challenger status in 2011. They'll be on the outside looking in. Both Microsoft (with Windows Phone 7) and HP (with Palm webOS) could have snatched some of the momentum away from Apple and Google a year ago in the smartphone market, but they're a little late now. Even though both have solid products, their timing is off and they have a lot of ground to make up in winning over software developers to their platforms.
As for BlackBerry and Nokia, they both have a large installed base of customers to draw on and build from, but it's not going to be enough to stem their losses in 2011. They are both too far behind when it comes to product innovation. Oh sure, they will continue to hold on to nice chunks of old market share in some places, but both will likely continue their decline at accelerating rates in 2011.