What If Android is Just a One-Hit Wonder? (Premium)

I've often described Android as the new Windows, and that's true on so many levels. But one of the more overlooked ways in which Android is just like Windows is in its various market defeats: Google just can't seem to make Android successful beyond its core market.

Like Windows on the PC, Android controls roughly 80 percent of its own core market, which is for smartphones. And that number doesn't look to be changing much over the next several years, if the prognostications from analysts at Gartner, IDC, and elsewhere are as correct as I believe them to be. Android is simply dominant in phones.

But Android has struggled everywhere else. Just as Windows has historically struggled everywhere else but the PC market.

To be sure, success can mean different things. There's success in numbers---market/usage share---and then there's financial (profit/revenue) success, including margin successes, where lower volumes of sales are still incredibly lucrative. And then success in engagement, where people are so taken with a core product that they automatically buy into related products and services.

Apple hits on all of those success points occasionally (iPhone) but it tends to score highly across the board. Google, like Microsoft, just doesn't do that. And its massive success in one devices market just hasn't translated to dominance elsewhere.

I can't explain why this is so, but it's interesting to watch Google simply flounder along just like Microsoft did between 10 and 25 years ago as it pushed its Windows-centric strategy, unsuccessfully, in other markets.

Consider the following Android offshoots.
Tablets
Winner: Apple iPad

It didn't take long for Google's hardware partners to push aside the superior iPhone threat in the smartphone market. But in tablets? Yes, Android still dominates tablets, albeit not at the same heady levels---with 69 percent usage share to iPad's 26 percent---but no one can name a single decent Android tablet that could be broadly recommended to anyone. Worse, Android---and its apps---are terrible on these larger screen devices despite years of improvements. They're just terrible. And you can't say that about iPad.
Wearables
Winner: Fitbit, Apple Watch

Apple went from also-ran to market leader with the transition to its second-generation Apple Watch wearables, but Android Wear is such a non-starter that its biggest hardware maker backer, Lenovo, is simply going to stop making the devices. The goofy thing here is that Android Wear actually has the superior software user experience. But Apple Watch features a nicer hardware design than the messes you see with Android Wear, and the software was much improved this past year.
Living room entertainment
Winner: Roku, Apple TV

When it comes to set-top boxes, there is Roku and then there is everything else. But the iOS-based Apple TV is still excellent, even though it doesn't support 4K/UHD or HDR. On the Android side, there's no clear market leader, and...

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