Apple CEO Tim Cook gave critical words about Android in an interview with BusinessWeek. Despite Android now being more popular than iOS, Cooks says he's not just looking at the raw numbers: "when you look at things like customer satisfaction and usage, you see the gap between Android and iOS being huge."
If one were to look at numbers, however, NetMarketShare attributes nearly 55 percent of all mobile traffic to iOS, while Android only made up 28 percent. Tim Cook looks at that stat to suggest that even though there are more Android devices sold, people are using their iPhones and iPads more often.
"Does a unit of market share matter if it’s not being used?" Cook questioned. "For us, it matters that people use our products. We really want to enrich people’s lives, and you can’t enrich somebody’s life if the product is in the drawer."
Cook is also points out that problem with Android fragmentation, saying that a consumer can walk into a phone store to find many different versions of the OS, some of which are outdated. "And so by the time they exit, they’re using an operating system that’s three or four years old. That would be like me right now having in my pocket iOS 3. I can’t imagine it."
Of course, it's part of Tim Cook's job to beat his chest to his competitors, but Android is still growing rapidly. Nokia was once the undisputed leader in smartphones, and it too was eventually unseated. All it would take to extend Android's lead even further is for a Chinese phone maker like Xiaomi to have a modest hit in its home country.
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