You may not remember Android in seven years.

Absrtact: 2014 is the seventh year of human entering the smartphone age, the mobile industry has profoundly influenced the process of human development in the past seven years with an unprecedented speed. When Jobs was standing at the WWDC conference in 2010 to launch a trans-era iphone

The 2014 is the seventh year of human access to the smartphone age, the mobile industry in the past seven years with an unprecedented speed has profoundly affected the human development process. When Mr. Jobs stood at the WWDC conference in 2010 to announce the iPhone4 of the era, he would not forget the winter of the first generation of iphones, or four years later, shouting "bigger than bigger" 's iphone 6/6 Plus still sells.

At the same time, the close unity of the small partner Google, has long been a original. After the enemies of the two companies, seven years have grown into the mobile industry can not shake the Giants. As I mentioned in a previous article: Apple's mobile game with Google was a war of different methodologies from the start, and if Apple's iOS is a closed garden, Google's Android is open square.

Two companies have completed the mobile industry's enlightenment and enclosure. According to the latest data released by Strategy Analytics this October, iOS and Android accounted for 96% of the global smartphone market by the third quarter of 2014. Of these, iOS has a market share of 12.3%, while Android is 83.6%. But in terms of profit, iOS is undoubtedly the absolute leader. Canaccord Genuity, an analyst firm, said Apple's profit in the mobile phone industry accounted for 72% of the profit in the smartphone market, while more than 10 of global Android vendors would compete for less than 30% of the profits, excluding some regional shanzhai makers.

Apple's role in the open, screen-known Android camp has been extremely delicate, as it has launched a small open policy not only in iOS 8 but also in two big-screen iphones.

Hidden

Google, the owner of the Android platform, has to face the brutal fact that, as users become increasingly immersed in mobile apps, search and jump browsing between Web pages that Google relies on is becoming irrelevant. For a long time, Google's desktop browser advertising model swept through the traditional advertising market, in December 2012, the German investigation company Statista survey showed that Google's advertising revenue has exceeded the total U.S. magazine newspaper advertising revenue.

On the mobile side, however, Google's advertising model has been slow to start. According to the New York Times, although emarketer, a market research firm, reckons that mobile advertising spending has increased twice-fold over the past two years, accounting for a 11.4% of total advertising spending. But because Google through the complex auction process to sell advertising, so can not unilaterally raise prices, but must allow advertisers to launch a more intense bid to push up the advertising price. To achieve this goal, the search giant has spent the past year trying to attract advertisers to use mobile platforms and even adjust the way the company sells and displays ads.

The root cause of this situation is the conflict between the app economy and Google's original model. Although Google has developed a large number of native apps in Android-from text messaging to mail to music, books and even fitness apps-most of these apps run independently, unlike the link jumps between Google's Web pages and services on desktop browsers.

Imagine how we use mobile phones now? Many users unlock the phone after the first reaction is to open a certain type of application, such as watching the news to open the news client, send and receive mail to open the Mail app, go out to eat shopping when the use of maps or group purchase, such as the app, these apps and Google search, The mobile version of Chrome is not a big (especially noticeable in China). Even if you use Gmail to send and receive emails, these apps are essentially islands of information. Google's mobile ad outlook is not rosy if Google cannot connect the islands in tandem.

Countermeasures

In the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop, the mobile version of Chrome has a new feature: "Merge tabs and apps." Google did this to deliberately blur the boundaries of each individual app with each browser page.

As shown on the left, the previous Chrome tabs were viewed only in chrome, and the position was only one page in the browser. But on the right, Chrome's position on each tab is exactly the same as that of Gmail and Google Maps, and if you don't watch carefully, you might think these tabs are standalone apps.

Android's father, Rubin, was removed from the Android team by Google Management in 2013, and Sander Pichai, the former vice president of Chrome and apps, became the new head of Android. The move is seen as a sign of Google's intention to integrate Chrome with the Android platform. October 2014, Google Management again adjusted, Sander Pichai has officially become Google's "number second."

Staff adjustment is also accompanied by product integration. According to IDC, Google's Chromebook shipments to U.S. schools reached 715,000 in the third quarter of this year, while Apple's ipad, 702,000, succeeded in Chromebook sales over the ipad with the help of a low-cost strategy. On the other hand, now that the chrome platform is perfectly running the Android platform of Evernote, Duolingo, sight words and Vine, in September 2014, Google moved another 7 Android apps to the Chrome platform, These applications are based on the Android Runtime on the Chrome OS, offering an experience that is consistent with Android.

"Google's control of Android is almost exactly the same as Microsoft's control of office and Windows," Andreessen Horowitz partner Bennedict Evans, a leading Silicon Valley venture, said. Microsoft relies on operating system windows (Google relies on play service packs, APIs) to support the Killer software office (Google Maps and browsers, Gmail, and so on) and to build these services into most Android phones in terms of the rules. For well-known reasons, China's Android phone does not have Google services, while the Amazon-represented manufacturers are ready to rebuild the new biosphere, although the Amazon's fire series of tablets, mobile phone sales are poor, but Amazon's ambitions can not be overlooked.

Since the first launch of the Android system in September 2007, the world's concerns about Android are "too open" and "easily fragmented", but seven years from now, Google needs to solve more problems than "open", " Fragmentation is much more difficult, and it needs to address the fundamental contradictions between its own advertising model and the mobile app economy. Perhaps the chrome platform will be a way out, Blaine Lekski, vice president of Google's Android product management, said of the media: ""android and the Chrome platform team are closer together, but that does not mean a radical change, at least not now. " "What happens to the original Android phone camp if Android is eventually replaced by the chrome platform?" Can China's local mobile phone companies seize new opportunities? How does the Chrome platform fight the ever-open iOS?

These problems seem to have no solution now, but time always provides the best answer. Just like seven years ago, we didn't know about Android, and seven years later, we probably don't remember Android.