Florence Ion covers smartphones and smart homes for Gizmodo. She has been writing about the Android operating system since 2012 and recently added iOS to her repertoire. You can follow his coverage hereand email story ideas or arguments why she should switch to the iPhone here.
Top story:
Android’s market share is drag behind Apple in the US and Canada, and iPhones recently scored over 50% of the total US market for the very first time. It’s probably an ecosystem issue: no one makes a walled garden worth sitting around in like Apple. Google and Samsung sure try, but these two companies also compete, so the platform is segmented. We’ll be watching closely to see how Android fares in 2023.
What we expect:
- Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S23 family, which includes the Galaxy S23, S23+ and S23 Ultra, will be the first batch of smartphones to debut in Q1. Their arrival tends to define the trajectory of Android devices for the rest of the year. Will this excite us in 2023? (it didn’t excite me Last year.)
- Google’s and Apple’s Developer Conferences are held in May and June, respectively. It is then that we will discover all the new features of Android and iOS. This is the best indicator of where the respective ecosystems are concentrated.
- Foldables are gaining ground with more and more additions from overseas brands like Oppo and Huawei. We have plenty of foldable options now, but will they become affordable in 2023?
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Unconventional wisdom:
Google is into the habit of dropping special features just for its Pixel smartphones. There’s often a technical reason for the exclusivity; after all, the whole point of the in-house Tensor chip was to fine-tune its AI capabilities so that Google could sell more smartphones. But this practice will lead to more fragmentation in the Android operating system. Even with Google’s unification efforts through the Android source code and providing updates piecemeal through the Play Store, as long as Google, Samsung, and brands like OnePlus do their own thing to compete with one another, the disparity will continue.
People to follow:
- If you’re keeping an eye on what’s new with Android, Mishaal Raman performs some of the most in-depth code research. You can find his Android source code breakdowns at Esper.io.
- Follow Google Dave Kleidermacher, vice president of engineering at Google for security and privacy on the Android platform and other Made by Google products. Kleidermacher offers insight into what’s going on behind the scenes with Android’s security practices.
- I still don’t know where to be on Mastodon, but Android devs leaving Twitter have formed a space to exist.
- Show watchdog Ross Young is an interesting Twitter account. Young has successfully predicted what is happening in the smartphone space based on the display supply chain pipeline. It’s unclear how long Young will continue to use Twitter to spread this information. You can only see it now if you are a paid subscriber.
- Read Bloombergit is To light up newsletter to see what happens next with Apple’s iPhone. Author Mark Gurman was on the brand throughout last year. The newsletter is also a useful tracker of what Apple is working on and where it’s focusing its efforts.
Companies to watch:
- GoogleThe Android maker is trying to establish a standalone brand while providing source code to outside competitors like Samsung and Motorola. Will it gain significant market share with the Pixel, or will Android still rely on Samsung to topple Apple’s iPhone?
- AppleRumors are swirling that Apple may postpone its next iPhone SE and focus on high-end to mid-range in the long term. If you refer to the sales figures in the United States, it seems that this strategy is working very well.
- OnePlus: This is a company I’m looking at out of sheer curiosity to find out how it’s holding up to the Oppo takeover. Oppo is a major overseas brand that sells devices like the Find X5 and Find N, the latter of which is also foldable, rivaling Samsung’s Z Fold. Since taking over OnePlus in 2021, we’ve seen notes from Oppo’s design paradigm looking at everything from how every new OnePlus phone curves around the edges, to how it handles its flavor of Android 13.
A long bet:
Foldables will become mainstream in 2023, and there will be A brand out there that launches a more affordable option. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 is still an impressive piece of kit, but it’s overpriced, even with trade-in and gift certificates. If Google offers a foldable Pixel, the cheaper brands will be pretty close – the Android source code is already ready for that. And if more Android makers buy the form factor, Apple will have to give it away and make it a foldable device, right?
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