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IPhone fantasies, Android phones realities

Get over it. No matter how marvelous the iPhone 5 will be, far more people will stilll be buying Android smartphones.
Written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Senior Contributing Editor
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High about the Apple iPhone 5 mania, Android flies serenely on.

I hate to break it to you, but the new iPhone 5 is not going to be the second coming of Steve Jobs; it's not going to give the economy a big push upward; nor will it be the best phone ever. It's just going to be a new smartphone.

The real news, which has been written on analyst walls around the world for months, is that Android phones continue to out-sell iPhones by a wide margin. For all the hype, for all the hysteria, iPhones come in second to Android.

How far behind? According to IHS, cumulative shipments of Android smartphone by the end of 2013 will crack the 1.1 billion mark. Apple? IPhone shipments will only reach 527 million in 2013 and it won't hit the 1 billion mark until 2015.

Even Apple's recent success in a U.S. courtroom against Samsung, the leading Android phone vendor is blowing up in Apple's face. Samsung's “buzz” rating among both early technology adopters and those in the 18-34 age group actually has recently surpassed Apple's mind-share.

It's not just the young and techie though. Apple's “victory” over Samsung has some older Americans convinced that if Samsung's devices really are just like Apple's, why pay the Apple premium when they can get a Samsung Android device instead? Oh the irony!

As for the new iPhone itself, it really only seems to have one important new feature: 4G LTE support. Which, by the way, will cause Samsung to sue Apple about two minutes after the news is officially released.

In other words, it's going to be business as usual in smartphone land once all the iPhone 5 release craziness is over: People will keep buying Android smartphones and the mobility patent lawsuits will keep coming.

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