700,000 Android devices activated each day

Andy Rubin: "...and for those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don't count re-sold devices), and "activations" means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service."<p>So it seems like a new device only.

Android is taking off here in India because it's creeping into the low-end. I'm sure the same thing is happening in most countries.<p>Last week I got a Samsung Galaxy Y. It's small, sturdy, has swype input and has great battery life. Gmail, reader &#38; facebook over 3G or wifi.<p>The price: <i>just $140!!!</i><p>I used to try high-end phones and then go back to low-end Nokias. Now, I'm not going back to my $40 Nokia and I'm definitely not going to pay $700+ for an iPhone that won't even have Swype.<p><i>edit: extra sentence</i>

It's remarkable the legal lengths to which Apple and Microsoft are going to try to stop Android, but it looks like they are having little or no effect.<p>Lawyers get paid, some silly patents get worked around, but that's about it it seems.

Android is the new Nokia: the lowest common demonimator phone; the default. Or, to cross realms, it's the new Windows. While Apple costs carriers a pretty penny, carriers get a share of the advertising revenue from Android based web searches, and they can preinstall whatever carrier apps they want on their Android devices, unlike on the iPhone.

Does anyone else look at these numbers and instantly think of the shear volume of waste?<p>With iphones thats a well over million per day. With most people already owning a phone thats a lot of superseded devices to deal with. Thats a lot of chemical waste...

I wonder what number of distinct users is. Once you go Android, you tend to stay there. Between my wife and me, for example, we have had 6 Android phones (1 HTC Hero, 2 HTC Evo 4Gs, 3 HTC Amaze 4Gs), and 5th Android tablet (2 Samsung Galaxy Tabs, 1 Asus Transformer, 1 Acer Iconia, and 1 T-Mobile G-Slate). I'm sure each activation was recorded, but there isn't really a way to deactivate a device. Even a factory reset appears to be restricted to the phone, and doesn't register anything with the carrier/Google.

I guess these numbers will increase as mobile vendors provide better ROMs with their mobiles. I bought a LG Optimus one to get started on Android (a year ago)and I got sick of its LG ROM in two weeks flat. Then I rooted it and put a custom ROM from XDA forums (with a custom optimised Kernel). I couldn't be more happier with my mobile's performance than this. Also I hear some new models of LG, HTC, Samsung have minimal default apps and lightweight ROMs now. So people don't have to be frustrated with un-removable built in apps and crap default home launchers. This will certainly get usability freaks (like me) interested.

That sounded way too high. But then, holy crap: 1 billion people buying a device once every 3 years is ~ 1 million a day.<p>Wow.

And these numbers are the reason why Android development is going to be a royal pain in the butt for a long time to come.<p>There is just no incentive for Google to change the developer tools to be more developer friendly, to be more powerful when developers are forced to release an Android application simply because it is the platform with the most users on it. Despite the fact that from a development standpoint it is a nightmare due to differing hardware/software to the point that shops that want to develop for Android have to have 30+ devices just for physically testing. The Android emulator is absolute crap because of timing difference a bug can manifest itself in the emulator and not on the phone and vice-versa.<p>Not only that but the quality of applications on Android devices is simply not up to par with the quality of the same applications on the iPhone. It says a lot when Twitter and Facebook wholesale take their UI designs/decisions and put them on Android devices from their iPhone counterparts.

I'm sure the number is accurate and kudos to Google but, wow, who the heck is activating all these devices? From the people I run into I would estimate the iOS:Android ratio at 10 or 20 to 1 (San Francisco).

That's roughly 250 million per year.

How are they certain it's not 400' doing a factory restore or rom flush?

That is only 10,000 years before all of humanity has one...

If Steve Jobs was still around he would not be happy about this.