This makes for a huge momentum shift towards mobile
Apple do away with the clunky method of entering letters via a numeric keypad, but they also replaced the pokey BlackBerry keyboard with a virtual one, thus freeing up more space for a larger screen (and more engaging apps). They also filled the iPhone with sensors such as GPS (Global Positioning System, to tell you where you are), a magnetometer (to tell you which direction is north), and accelerometers (to detect whether the iPhone is moving, and, if so, which way). It was through the combination of all these ine time, that Apple was able to set the stage for what would be a multibillion-dollar-per-year app industry. Over at Google, co-CEO Larry Page watched the iPhone launch and realised that mobile was going to become a dominant force. Since 2005 he had been talking to a developer called Andy Rubin about a rather secretive project called Android – a new mobile OS. After only a handful of meetings Page was so impressed by Rubin – and the technology – that he was ready to buy the fledging company and inject massive internal investments into the project. Android mirrored Apple’s entire ecosystem, but with one key difference – and ultimately a massive one. Android would run on open-source software. That meant that anyone in the world – from an individual developer all the way to a giant smartphone manufacturer – was allowed to use the Android software and tailor it to their own specific purpose. Apple, on the other hand, had taken a highly controlled, walled-garden approach with iOS (its mobile operating system). Apple would not allow anyone else to use the system, and iOS would run only on Apple-made hardware. The diagram below shows how dramatically things have changed. When Microsoft launched Windows in the 1980s, it took 12–15 years for it to dominate 96 per cent of all desktop computers.5 And yet, when you look to the right of the graph, you can see that iOS and Android have destroyed Microsoft’s near-monopoly in a mere five years. People have adopted mobile computing more than three times faster than they did the desktop.6 This points in a fascinating direction: people don’t want to be artificially stuck behind desktop or even laptop computers. In fact, the data suggests that
people want their computers to be as mobile as they are. And herein lies the massive opportunity with mobile – and, more specifically, with mobile apps. Global Market Share of Personal Computing Platforms by Operating Systems Shipments, 1975–2012
The Android OS could therefore be used, adapted and optimised for use on ssung and BlackBerry
Mobile is winning across the board. China ended 2013 with 618 million Internet users, of which 500 million were mobile Internet users.7 Eighty-one per cent of Chinese are now accessing the Internet via mobile.8 Mobile Internet New York payday loans near me browsing as a percentage of total Internet browsing had reached 23 per cent by 9 – that’s an 83 per cent increase in just a year. If the above trend continues, then mobile is going to represent the majority of all personal computing platforms by 2016. In 2015, the number of smartphone users is expected to hit 2 billion.10 The lower cost of mobile devices combined with the growth of mobile broadband networks will actually see the next billion people who come online bypass desktop computing entirely and go straight to mobile. What are we doing on our smartphones? It’s clear that the demand for more intelligent mobile devices is huge – but what is driving it? One way to understand this accelerating trend is to investigate exactly what we’re using our smartphones for. A typical smartphone user looks at their phone about 150 times per day.11 That seems like a ridiculous number, but, when you break it down by activity, it suddenly seems a lot more plausible. Try ruthlessly logging your own smartphone activity for a couple of days. I tried it, and was astonished