Android is struggling to keep its market share in the United States, as Apple continues to take over in the market. But, despite Android as a whole losing ground, Google Pixel phones are becoming a bigger slice of the US market.
Counterpoint Research reports that, in Q2 2023, US smartphone shipments dropped by 24% year-over-year. That includes both iPhones and Android phones, and virtually every brand saw a drop in shipments. Samsung saw US shipments drop by 37% while Motorola saw a 17% drop. TCL saw the biggest decline at just shy of 70% year-over-year, and even Apple saw a 6% drop.
Samsung and major carriers are shooting android in the foot with the bloatware. There are less and less viable android models that aren’t half filled with carrier or manufacturer specific apps that can’t be deleted. The pixel might be a tool of the Google devil but at least it provides the illustration of customization. iPhones are still Iphones. People they phone is pretty much the same butvthe hardware gets slightly better. Combine all that with messaging on Iphones essentially excluding android and ut becomes though to stick with anything but a Pixel or iphone. If I didn’t have lots of Google stuff setup for work I might reconsider iphones, but the pixel really has made my life easier via Google big brother. If work used apple big brother I would switch.
At this point google is pretty much the only company providing an Android experience that isn’t shit
Anyone I’ve met that hasn’t liked it has used a Samsung. They try so hard to be apple but they don’t understand the parts that work and just create an overall bloated and shitty experience
Doesn’t help that they have overpriced everything
Fairphone provides stock Android.
These 2 sentences are the complete opposites of each other. Google are the ones trying to be apple, removing customisation and dumbing everything down. Samsung are the ones that are providing the android experience that most people want, which is why they outsell Google 100 to 1 or more.
Yeah to be fair I’ve always had a Samsung, either flagship or midrange and never had an issue.
Samsung has gone way overboard with their pricing for flagships recently but their midranges are pretty decent on that score and I guess I just go with them because I’m happy with what I’m getting now. The A52s is what I have now, upgraded from an S10+ which had pretty much the same specs.
In terms of bloatware, I just disable it or uninstall it, same as I do with any software which comes on a work phone or home PC that I don’t use. Is this a big deal?
As for pixels - it’s great that they get regular updates. But they’re also expensive. They seem to look nice. Generally speaking though I agree they are the attempt to do an iPhone version of Android which probably only really matters in the US market