What Apple Needs to Do to Catch Up With Android

There's currently a big competition in the mobile market. Android seems to be leading Apple in the market.
So what should Apple do next? It remains to be seen whether the company can still innovate at the highest levels, but there's plenty of low-hanging fruit. In going through the list, I'll stay away from things Apple will almost certainly never do—such as opening its App Store to all developers at all times, or allowing customers to root their devices, or replace all of the built-in apps. While these things are highly desirable to phone enthusiasts, they carry risks down the line in terms of the quality of Apple's app catalog, and the company's highly specific arrangements with the major U.S. carriers.
So let's leave that stuff to Android fans. Instead, let's talk about what Apple can do to make the next iPhone and iOS 7 even better, using the design framework and ecosystem the company already has in place: Larger, higher-resolution displays . This is the one everyone is clamoring for—and with good reason. It's not just that bigger is better. It's that more people are using phones as their primary internet access devices. In many cases, a phone acts as a main computer; fewer people are holding phones up to their heads to make calls. When Samsung sold the first five million Galaxy Note tablets , against many pundits expectations (including mine) 18 months ago, that was Apple's cue to respond in kind. The 4-inch iPhone 5 $199.99 at Best Buy , while an incremental size increase over the first five years of iPhones, isn't nearly enough now. Smaller one-handed phones can, and do, have a market. But Apple needs to play in the bigger leagues as well.

The results are in, and they're definitive: Google's Android OS is far and away the worldwide leader when it comes to smartphone market share. For a while— particularly around 2009 and 2010—it seemed as if Apple was on an upward track to dominate the smartphone market, similar to how it had conquered digital music players by the middle of the last decade. Now we know the answer: There's room for several major smartphone competitors , and Apple isn't the dominant one.

 Clearly Apple had Android in its sights when it designed iOS 7 . Much has been made of the new flat UI design and Johnny Ive's influence. But iOS 7 also contains features like universal multitasking and animated wallpapers, both of which are traditional Android strengths. iOS 7's Control Center gives you quick shortcuts to control screen brightness, enable/disable various radios, and other features that should have been there years ago, just like Android has. Apple is also strengthening its auto integration—in actuality, taking a first real stab at it, even though cars have featured iPod docks for almost a decade—and you can bet the landscape-oriented drive modes found in many Android phones had something to do with it. Remember that as of today, no one can match Apple's ecosystem from start to finish. From desktop, laptop, and mobile device hardware to software, media sales, app stores, and an award-winning, unmatched network of retail locations, Apple's tightly integrated ecosystem is something no other competitor can touch. But there's still plenty Apple needs to do if it wants to boost market share. We always see the percentages ebb and flow, as Apple releases a revamped iPhone each year and then lets it stagnate over the course of the next 12 months or so. But the downward trend is pretty clear now.