The "Good News, Bad News" thread

[Schol-R-LEA]

The good news? Windows is no longer the dominant consumer OS.

The bad news? Android now is.

[Brendan]

Hi,

The good news? Windows is no longer the dominant consumer OS.

The bad news? Android now is.

Erm..

Android has been the dominant OS for smartphone market for ages. Windows is still the dominant OS for desktop. Kimberly-Clark is still the dominant manufacturer of toilet paper. These are three completely different markets; and nobody that dominates one of these markets looks like it's making any progress in any other completely different market.

If you do "nonsensical sum of completely different markets" (e.g. in a "5 apples plus 4 bananas = 3.4 chickens" way), you'll find that Android and Windows are both losing. Kimberly-Clark dominates.


Cheers,

Brendan

[matt11235]

Kimberly-Clark dominates.

They should start manufacturing ICs. I don't think TSMC and GlobalFoundries can handle the current volume on their own.

[alexfru]

Kimberly-Clark dominates.

They should start manufacturing ICs. I don't think TSMC and GlobalFoundries can handle the current volume on their own.

Like they could print biochemical ones right on the TP? And your TP would turn colors to tell you that you're going to die. Or give birth. Or win lottery.

[dozniak]

Hi,

The good news? Windows is no longer the dominant consumer OS.

The bad news? Android now is.

Erm..

Android has been the dominant OS for smartphone market for ages. Windows is still the dominant OS for desktop. Kimberly-Clark is still the dominant manufacturer of toilet paper. These are three completely different markets; and nobody that dominates one of these markets looks like it's making any progress in any other completely different market.

But if you actually read the article you'll see they are comparing the common grounds which is "internet usage" metric.

Also,

However, Windows still dominates the worldwide operating system desktop market (PC and laptop) with a 84% internet usage share in March.

So, LEARN TO READ.

[matt11235]

Kimberly-Clark dominates.

They should start manufacturing ICs. I don't think TSMC and GlobalFoundries can handle the current volume on their own.

Like they could print biochemical ones right on the TP? And your TP would turn colors to tell you that you're going to die. Or give birth. Or win lottery.

Definitely. They should hire us both.

[Roman]

These are three completely different markets

I don't quite agree. For a lot of users, a smartphone became a PC replacement.

[Brendan]

Hi,

Android has been the dominant OS for smartphone market for ages. Windows is still the dominant OS for desktop. Kimberly-Clark is still the dominant manufacturer of toilet paper. These are three completely different markets; and nobody that dominates one of these markets looks like it's making any progress in any other completely different market.

But if you actually read the article you'll see they are comparing the common grounds which is "internet usage" metric.

If you use your brain you'll see that the article uses "internet statistics" to claim "most dominant consumer OS". What if I did something equally retarded and used "office productivity application usage statistics" (from word processors, spreadsheets, etc) and claimed that Andriod has less than 1% of the consumer OS market?

Why not "creatively reinterpret" the statistics in a different way; and say that Andriod is so lame that users can't do much more than spend all their time browsing the Internet (possible while spending significantly more time using Windows to do actual work that doesn't involve being being tied to "cloud" to make up for the fact that the CPU isn't powerful enough)?


Cheers,

Brendan

[Schol-R-LEA]

Wait, are you arguing against the assertion (which I will admit is rather hinky - I posted it more for the groan factor than anything, because even in the ways it is true, it would be far from an improvement), or against Android? Because while I will certainly agree that Android is 'lame' (as you rather childishly put it - seriously, how old are you, to still be talking like that after over ten years on this forum?), I think you are overestimating what people want and need from these devices. The primary use of a smartphone is as a smart phone - the rest are all for convenience and entertainment. Tablets? Those have more in common with televisions than with desktop PCs. Home computers? The primary uses for those are the same as those for tablets - web browsing and games - and the other uses are secondary.

Most people don't actually need a device that runs a word processor or spreadsheet in their pocket, and wouldn't use them even if they did, because the nature of mobile devices limits the use of typing and similar actions in ways that cannot be overcome (or at least, no one has managed to so far - and I expect that by the time they do, the solution will probably eliminate the issue entirely, e.g., by using a neuro-electrical interface based on touch, meaning that the way people would perform 'word processing' would be entirely different). Most don't want to, either, because, as I said in other threads, those are the things they do at school or at work which they are using their home computers, game consoles, smartphones, and tablets to get away from.

I agree that the article is BS, and appreciate that you pointed this out. I just can't help but feel that the reasons you are objecting to it aren't the ones you are stating.

[Brendan]

Hi,

Wait, are you arguing against the assertion (which I will admit is rather hinky - I posted it more for the groan factor than anything, because even in the ways it is true, it would be far from an improvement), or against Android?

I'm arguing against "marketing logic" (and against fools being sucked in by it, and against these fools attempting to suggest that I can't read simply because I wasn't sucked in by it). My previous reply is intended to show how retarded the original false conclusion is by twisting the statistics in a different direction and creating "alternative false conclusions". This should have been obvious.

The only valid way to determine "consumer OS dominance" is to measure the total number of hours consumers spend using each OS (within a fixed time period), regardless of what they're using the OS for, and regardless of whether it involves the Internet or not.

I'm also arguing against comparing products for very different markets and attempting to pretend that the result is not meaningless click bait.


Cheers,

Brendan

[matt11235]

to make up for the fact that the CPU isn't powerful enough)?

We're in the minority here. For most people a crappy little ARM CPU is enough.
You don't need anything powerful to flick through Facebook while on the toilet, to post pictures of your drunk friends on Instagram or to play the occasional pay2win game.

[Sik]

These are three completely different markets

I don't quite agree. For a lot of users, a smartphone became a PC replacement.

Yeah, that's the issue (and Microsoft actively wants to take over the phone market too, so it's still relevant to them). Now we're seeing potential attempts to make laptops running Android apps, and while honestly they will probably fail (until somebody gets the memo that we need an UI that can adapt easily to wildly different environments we won't have an unified platform), there's definitely a big push to try to get the two markets merged. Why wouldn't you want to run the same OS on both your handheld system and your full blown computer, as long as the form factor issue is dealt with reasonably well?

We're in the minority here. For most people a crappy little ARM CPU is enough.

And it'd be even overkill if it wasn't because software has bloated to ridiculous extents to compensate (・～・) Some bloat to make things easier, I get it, but programmers have just gotten awfully careless. In my experience these days quite a large bunch of games these days spend less resources than the average app and this has gotten pretty pathetic.

[iansjack]

until somebody gets the memo that we need an UI that can adapt easily to wildly different environments we won't have an unified platform

Somebody did get that memo. They are called Microsoft and the result is called Windows 10.

[alexfru]

The primary use of a smartphone is as a smart phone - the rest are all for convenience and entertainment.

I, for one, spend more time on my smart phone reading this forum or using navigation alone than actually making or answering phone calls. [I may be somewhat an exceptional case, but it seems there's a new trend, people prefer mail and other forms of text messaging to voice calls.] And I upgraded from a dumb flip phone to a smart phone because first my navigator stopped charging and then the old phone died and I never quite liked either of them. So it was kinda natural to go to with (or at least try out) a portable computer with phone and navigation features. Strangely, this nearly reproduced the first navigation setup I tried, a laptop with Microsoft's Streets and Trips on it. Except, with greatly improved usability (S&T truly sucked).

[TightCoderEx]

Excerpt from article:

Android now world’s most popular operating system in terms of internet usage

Android is no more an operating system than Redhat, Mandrake or Ubuntu. It is just simply a GUI riding atop the Linux kernel. What would make a more interesting article is NT vs Linux. For the multitudes, these colloquial connotations may resonate to varying degrees, but I would venture to say, the author of that article is no better informed than they are.