The Mobile Spoon Summarizes 2011. Is It Possible That Nothing Has Changed?
Posted by Gil Bouhnick on December 31, 2011
This blog post was originally written for the mobile spoon.
2011 is officially over, and boy, was that a crazy year or what?
Well, actually, despite of all the action, if you think about it – nothing has really changed this year. The winners are still winning, the losers are still losing.
The winners:
- Samsung Galaxy – HTC? Motorola? LG? Nokia? Give Samsung a break. 2012 was the year of the Galaxy. A number of amazing models that placed Samsung at the top of the phones manufacturers pyramid.
- Google Android - climbing to new heights in terms of sales and activations per day, but despite of all the success, Google is still looking for a bit of personality to its’ successful robot, re-inventing the user interface every few months.
- Apple iOS – iPhone 4S is disappointing? iOS 5 failed to innovate? Who cares. Users are happier than ever, Siri rocks, and iPad continues to be the undisputed king. On the other hand, the momentum is constantly slowing down; Apple lost Steve Jobs, the stock is not as happy as usual, and iOS is officially the oldest mobile OS in today’s market.
- Amazon Kindle Fire – sales are rocketing, the Fire seems to be the first true competitor to the iPad. 2012 could become the year of Amazon in mobility. On the other hand, I heard about more people who returned the Kindle Fire saying it’s a crappy device than people that are actually happy with it…
The Losers:
- RIM BlackBerry – it’s hard to believe how RIM, once one of the most successful companies in the world is impotently surrendering without a fight. Try one of RIM’s latest BlackBerry devices and you will understand why analysts are not giving RIM a lot of hope.
- Microsoft Windows Phone 7 – year after year I’m writing about Microsoft’s failing mobile products. I actually bought a Windows Phone 7 devices, I even like it a lot. I’m all in favor of Metro UI, yet it took me 6-7 months and then I went back using an iPhone. The apps, the user experience, the possibilities… Microsoft still has a long way to go.
The Tragic Hero:
- Palm’s webOS – I’m thinking of all the ups and downs webOS had this year,and I cannot help myself from thinking about the engineers who built webOS and how they must feel about it. A brilliant piece of work that never had a chance to make it in this cruel world.
So you see? 2011 had so much activity, and yet nothing has really changed.
Check out the complete summary of 2011 in: