At Apple's media event yesterday, chief executive Steve Jobs said his company had sold 120 million iOS devices (that is, iPhones and iPads) over the past four years.Further, 230,000 iOS devices were now being activated per day, worldwide.Google chief
At Apple’s media event yesterday, chief executive Steve Jobs said his company had sold 120 million iOS devices (that is, iPhones and iPads) over the past four years.
Further, 230,000 iOS devices were now being activated per day, worldwide.
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt claimed last month that 200,000 mobiles running his companies Android software were being activated each day - again, worldwide.
Mr Jobs is apparently unimpressed by that claim.
"We think some of our friends are counting upgrades in their numbers," he told the audience (see Apple’s official event video here).
While Mr Jobs did not name any company all commentators immediately assumed he was talking about Google with his double-counting accusation.
Forbes put the claim to the search giant.
A Google spokesman was quick to come back with a rebuttal: "The Android activation numbers do not include upgrades and are, in fact, only a portion of the Android devices in the market since we only include devices that have Google services."
Someone’s lying.
Three recent market surveys, by Canalys, Nielsen and NDP, have found that Android-based phones (made by Motorola, Sony-Ericsson, LG, Samsung, HTC and others) are now outselling iPhone in the US.
Google has not released any numbers for its Android Market download service, but it's likely to be some distance behind Apple's AppStore.
Yesterday, Mr Jobs said AppStore downloads had now passed 6.5 billion, with 200 apps downloaded every second.
There were now more than 250,000 apps; 25,000 of them iPad-specific.
Throw in the fact that most Androids sell for a lot less than an iPhone (Huawei just introduced a $US100 model) an Apple looks like it's sitting in the cat-bird seat.
It's raking in more money, and Apple and Google are stealing market share from the likes of Nokia and BlackBerry maker RIM rather than each other.
So relax, Mr Jobs.
