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Comment by ergo98 | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but the Android tablet + media player market has been generally a giant bust thus far. A tonne of vapor, but very little action. I think that was a strategic failing on Google's part, as they intentionally kept criteria that crippled those markets while iOS was spreading far and wide (and that's all that really matters to a game developer).

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Curious - If you add the Million+ Galaxy Tabs sold and every other manufacturer that sells Android like the Archos, B&N Nook Color, Chinese Androids(ZTE, Meizu) (see here for more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_devices ) then where does the Android vs iOS equation stand? There is no point in playing the Android vs iOS game if you include all iOS devices. The only meaningful/hard numbers available for Android are for SmartPhones - so Android SmartPhones vs. iOS SmartPhone is the only comparison you could validly make.

> The only meaningful/hard numbers available for Android are > for SmartPhones - so Android SmartPhones vs. iOS SmartPhone > is the only comparison you could validly make.

Why so? If I am a developer and my app runs the same on iPhone and iPod touch (and probably on iPad if I took time to make it universal) then I care not only about the iPhones.

Same applies for Android apps - your app will work on all Phones, Tablets, Media Players and what not with all the same caveats. So you either need to compare Android Phone to iOS Phones OR Android Phones+Media Players+Tablets with iPhones+iPod+iPad - that was the point.

Non iPhone devices account for more than the half of iOS devices sold if you count iPad, and ~40% if you don't. What percentage of non-phone Android devices is compared to phones?

It is not possible to know - Google maintains a number of phones per day figure that only applies to Phones that are "with Google" phones which users activate using their Google accounts. Per the Android model, if a vendor makes a phone or tablet or Media Player without involving Google (and plenty do) then Google doesn't know about how many of those are sold. So if you are comparing the 300000 number Google put out - that is only valid for SmartPhones. You can club other categories but since there are no numbers (yet) for those categories of Android devices the comparison is not apples to apples. (See below posts for more data on how it is easy to see if you include most conservative numbers for the other categories, Android easily beats iOS at this number game)

I think they Galaxy Tabs are already counted as a consequence of them going for the "big phone" approach before Google relaxed their requirments for the market. (They've since announced Tabs with only Wifi and an iPod Touch-alike called the Galaxy Player).

As Zero mentioned, Galaxy Tab's count in Google's numbers. Google publishes numbers for devices that access the market, which is essentially every non-intentionally crippled device. They don't give the number just for smartphones, it just happens that it was overwhelmingly smartphones. The Nook might run Android, but unless the user roots it (which a vanishingly small percentage do) it doesn't operate as a normal Android device.

Google clearly says 300000 "Phones" and the Galaxy Tab cannot make calls. And they have no way to give you numbers that they can't count - so they aren't selectively giving you phone numbers - the other big part of Android is not tied to Google activation system and so there is no way for them to know. (Nook _is_ Android - 2.1 version to be specific - whether or not Apps are allowed to run on default version is not relevant.)

I guess where you are getting at is Android == Google and nothing else and it is somehow OK to compare Phone numbers to 3 separate categories put together because of your assumption that Android=Phones=Google. That's clearly not true but I guess from the down voting that I am disturbing a good number of fans with numbers so don't be worried - pick the number that makes you happy ;)

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