Note that it took behemoths like Apple and Google to enter the cellphone market. The sheer size of those two companies, combined with the carrier lock-in landscape at the time (VZ offered GPS nav for $10 a month!), made for an opportunity.
What’s the corollary today? What need are Google and Apple underserving, and what company is large enough to mount a challenge to their duopoly?
Microsoft has been in that market for much longer and yet cannot get traction. One of the biggest things for me with both Windows Mobile and Ubuntu was the lack of actual phones I could buy through my carrier. If they're not available to me I cannot buy them, if I cannot buy them, neither can anyone else on my carrier who would love to, and I'm sure there's plenty of people frustrated with Android and iOS alike. Shame we cannot have a true Linux OS.
Edit: To be fair I saw some phones from Microsoft on my carrier, but their battery life that was advertised was terrible, and there were few of them. If there had been 2 ~ 3 phones and new ones every few months, now we're talking... Ah well. I would prefer to see a Linux phone but I wouldn't mind buying a Windows one if they didn't feel like they could be abandoned like a couple of Microsoft's products wind up.
True, but IIRC (and I may not), Microsoft didn’t try to challenge the grip the carriers had on their network and devices. Not in the same way Apple did. And by the time they finally did release a modern smartphone, the market had already been divvied up between Android and iOS.
But fair point, sheer size isn’t enough to disrupt a market, but it damn well helps. It’s also worth remembering that Apple had to grant AT&T exclusivity to get their way initially. That’s how powerful the carriers were.
I still see a lot of AT&T first phones. AT&T still seems to have some "power" to themselves. It's once you establish a specific phone's brand that you push it out to other carriers I suppose. It took Apple quite a while too as far as I knew. Never owned an iOS device and I probably never might despite enjoying macOS.
> One of the biggest things for me with both Windows Mobile and Ubuntu was the lack of actual phones I could buy through my carrier.
I never really understood this line of reasoning. Is there a reason why people can't opt to buy an unlocked mobile device online and just put their SIM in it [1]. That's what most people do for other types of hardware like desktops, laptops, and tablets.
[1] I'm not sure how this would work for devices on Verizon or Sprint (which is why I don't do business with them a opposed to AT&T or T-mobile).
What’s the corollary today? What need are Google and Apple underserving, and what company is large enough to mount a challenge to their duopoly?