[citation][nom]stingray71[/nom]Always felt Nokia was making a deal with the devil when it partnered with Windows. Android is a much better fit. Nokia quality phone with Android 4.x and beyond sounds exciting.[/citation]
Android is very likely going to hit a wall soon, and suffer the same issue that Linux suffers on the desktop: market fragmentation
Right now it is no big deal. Phones have a life expectancy of 1-2 years, and new models of the same phone typically come out in less than one year with much better specs. With such huge strives in processing power/efficiency and display tech improvements, people are more than willing to shell out the money for a new phone on an accelerated time scale. Also (especially in the US) phones are heavily discounted every 2 years when on contract, so it is cheap and fluid to move up to a new phone without a second thought.
But 2 big things are changing which may upset things:
1) Phone hardware innovation is beginning to slow down from the breakneck speed that it has been doing so far (something which has made moore's law seem like a slow and antiquated idea). In a few years when we hit the wall that we have already hit with desktops where the CPU and GPU power is simply 'enough', and we start focusing on things like battery life rather than the current balance of form factor vs heat vs processing power. And if it takes more than 2 years to see a significantly 'faster' phone available in the same price bracket, then people will not upgrade every 2 years.
2) People around the world are beginning to wake up about the contract via major carriers as being a major rip-off. When I can get service for 2 phones via T-Mobile with essentially unlimited everything for $100/mo, and that same service on ATT and Verizon costs $200+, then people start to scratch their heads and do a little math; If I could save $100/mo for 2 years, it equals $2,400... and all that my contract bought me was a discount of $800 for phones over that 2 year period. That is not a deal!
I am not saying that contracts go away entirely, but I would be highly surprised if ATT and Verizon do not have off-contract deals like TMobile does within the next few years because all of these 'upstart' companies are really beginning to make a dent in their customer base. This is already happening throughout the rest of the world, and is only a matter of time before it hits the US.
So when the entry price for a good smartphone rises due to being 'off contract', and your phone's usable life is extended because they are simply 'fast enough', then the major consideration between what phone you purchase becomes the feature set (and all phone OSs support similar features), and customer support. WP and iOS have a distinct advantage on the customer support side of things for the simple reason that MS and Apple can push updates directly to a device with minimal interaction with the phone manufacturer or service provider. Meanwhile, on the Android side you see Google come out with a major update or upgrade, which gets passed down to the manufacturer who needs to expend a bunch of manpower to get said update to work on their hardware, and then (unless you have a rooted phone) the service provider needs to expend more time in making their stupid software integration work right on each individual phone line. For higher end phone this process takes several months, while lower end phones it takes over a year (if you ever see the update at all).
Again, this is not a major issue when people are buying a new phone every year or two, but those days are numbered and it is only a matter of 2-3 years before we are going to see much longer lasting phones hit the market whose owners will take these considerations more seriously.
Phone manufacturers like Android's update model right now, because for them every major update forces customers to purchase a new device if they want the new features. Also, the low/free cost of Android (unless your company is being sued to oblivion) is extremely appealing as it is one less cost to worry about, making for a thicker bottom line.
Service providers on the other hand are really beginning to wake up to the fact that they do not want to provide phone support. Android forces them to spend extra effort in order to keep existing customers happy. Android has a higher profit margin out the door, but every update that consumers demand to be supported becomes a major liability. WP and iOS do not have the same generous profit margins, but then again they take almost all of the support out of the hands of the service provider, which is more important as people keep their phones longer.
If Android stays the way it is now, then here is what I think happens:
On the low end market we will see tons of cheap Android devices are are relatively 'disposable' in the $100-250 range (without contract). There will be little profit in them, but as there is no real licence fees with Android it will allow for the lower price point. These devices will never see updates or much support.
On the midrange ($3-600) we will see a major battle between WP and iOS. The ease of use, predictability of behavior across devices and carriers, and integration with other devices within their respective ecosystems (tablets, desktops and consoles) will make them very attractive for the mass markets.
On the high end ($650+) we will see 3 distinct groups. Android for power users, WP for the high end mass market, and iOS for those who are invested in the Mac ecosystem (assuming Apple avoids driving off a cliff they are aiming at right now).
Again, not saying that Android is doomed, as they could easily close up and standardize the OS over the next few years; But Google is known for throwing things against a wall and finding what sticks, and when that model no longer works they do not throw much effort/money behind it to keep it going, they just let it die and offer up new products elsewhere. I think it would be much more likely that we see Android slowly die off, and then something similar to ChromeOS will come in and take it's place where Google has much more control over the environment, and phone manufacturers and service providers would have to take less of a support role.
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