The serious competition goes both ways with Android clearly pulling away from AAPL over the next year in market share.
Well certainly for one quarter, in the US only, amongst 18+ yr olds, and ignoring corporate acquisitions…yes. Beyond that is hard to say. Sales are cyclical.
That, of course, doesn't mean Android will have the best OS.
As Apple knows only too well the "best" is a relative term to the general public, who often cares little about such things.
I presently prefer iOS4, the total package (security, integration, iTunes, The App Store, etc.) and most of the business model the company puts on the road, but I'm not religiously attached to it.
I don't think we're going to get to an all or nothing situation. Android is only the OS, and the iPhone itself is only the hardware, but it's probably always going to be a combination of those that proves most successful in the end.
Android may end up with larger overall OS share, but distributed amongst a half dozen manufacturers. Apple's share as both OEM and OS maker may continue to be larger than any one of them. While Symbian still has the largest OS share among all phones worldwide no one is placing much hope in their longevity.
Android is in a huge growth phase as all the pent up frustration from the various OEMs finally get underway in a new direction after 3 years of watching Apple take the plum $ part of the market. I assume things will return to some sort of balance, with the market distributed between 2 or three key players if RIM can keep up, or if MSFT doesn't botch things.
The only AAPL stock I own presently is via ETFs. I like to avoid specific stock risk; I scare easily.
ETFs have gone mad the last couple years. One of my clients is a bank and they're introducing ETF funds as fast as they can get them approved. There's so few places to put your money anymore that are completely risk free. Even my mattress has termites!
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