Thank you for bringing up the biggest lie in technology. It's a transparent loser's speech that, thankfully, we've yet to actually hear Apple incant.

Apple is trying quite hard to get the biggest market share: Did you happen to catch Steve bragging about leaving RIM in their rearview? How desperately he compares iPhone activations to Android activations?

Have you noticed the incredible quantities of lucre that Apple is dumping on mass media advertising lately? (I don't have the numbers, but it is, by far, the #1 advertised brand from my perspective). Have you noticed that Apple is now making products at virtually every price point?

Apple is the very definition of a mass market company. They are not a niche or a luxury maker, and delusions to that effect are simply bizarre.

Sure, they don't sell a discount iPhone, but that's entirely because consumers are accustomed to subsidized models, so going from $600 to $500 really makes no difference (it really doesn't matter whether the phone is $200, $150, $99, $49, or even FREE when each comes bound with a $3500 smartphone contract).

If people were accustomed to buying devices without subsidization, Apple would have the entire low-end market covered. On the Android front by far the most popular phones are the high end phones like the Galaxy S and the Droid 2, which are hardly inexpensive devices.

Apple came incredibly close to achieving a brilliant strategic lock-in to the nascent smartphone market that would have locked them in as the default choice: Many organizations had a mobile strategy that simply relied upon "releasing an iPhone app", creating a network effect where you were either onboard with the iPhone, or you're a second class citizen. Here on HN there were quite a few single-person startups that had a business plan involving nothing more than creating an iPhone app, yielding a strong anti-Android bias -- having multiple platforms is just a PITA, right?

Remember, this is not a race to be the company who sells the most units, it's just about making tons of money, and this is what Apple cares about.

I edited that slightly to what I suspect you meant to say. It's another ridiculous lie that we keep hearing.

Apple had the "niche market" for quite a few years. Yeah it led them to desperately go to Microsoft, hat in hand, begging for some "we'll get the anti-trust police off your backs" payoffs (which they got, funding the recovered Apple).

HTC is a relatively new smartphone company. They've been going gangbusters on the backs of Android. Motorola was in complete mobile collapse so their balance sheet isn't quite so great right now, but without Android they would have been done. On and on. The "Apple makes more profit" angle is nice, I guess, if you own Apple shares, but otherwise it's completely meaningless.

I don't want Android to dominate. In fact I hope that RIM gets some mojo back (and that QNX plays a part. Anyone who did comp sci in Ontario is generally in love with QNX, because it's a beautiful OS), that Windows Mobile 7 can get an R2 out soon that fixes many of the failings, and of course Apple is and won't be going anywhere, and will continue to provide technology kungfu.

We need a vibrant, competitive market where one person -- like Steve Jobs -- isn't making technology decrees for an entire industry (see: Flash).