And you are also wrong about the price. The iPhone is not more expensive than other phones. Besides, most people don't buy a phone here, they take a contract with a provider.

So it's a little less salty.

Despite the strength of the iPhone brand, there's still a significant chunk of the market that really "doesn't care" and just wants a phone that works. Sure they'd be happy to have a camera and all the rest of what a smart phone offers but they're cautious about increasing their monthly bill with data charges and, first and foremost, just want a phone. You can sell this type of consumer an Android phone quite easily, even if they came into your store asking for an iPhone.

Meanwhile Apple made the "mistake" of pushing their vision of user experience all the way through consumer. To do this they dictated terms to telcos on how they distribute iPhones, and broke long established conventions built up with Nokia, Motorola, Sony Erikson and others about the distribution process, and questioned the role of the telco in that process. That left telcos scared of a future where Apple is their dominant supplier. So they fixed it.

IMO that's where these numbers are coming from.

From Q3 2010 -> Q3 2011 iOS went from 13million to 17million. Android went from 20million to 60million.

I have interest in a few apps out there. All are available on iOS and Android. I have found the iOS apps to be MUCH more profitable. Apps made for iPad are incredibly profitable. Now realize, I am only talking about apps I had a hand in.

My question is, why is this? Is this just the way the market is? And if others are getting more profit from Android than iPhone, what do you think is driving that?

I guess the question is, how do you get Android users to pay you? It is an important question if such a growing number of people are using Android.

Owners of the iPhone can be much different than Android owners, think of them as your premium buyer. They are more apt to pay for an app but their expectations are much higher.

Owners of Android devices can belong within a huge range of factors involving buying habits. Think of them as your mainstream audience. Since there are so many variations of devices and their price points, it is only natural that there would be differences within that audience as to who pays and who doesn't.

For instance, I own an LG Optimus V. I went with that because the phone was cheap and the monthly rate was much more reasonable than from the big carriers. It serves my needs quite nicely and I am quite happy with the choice. I have yet to purchase an app for it. Not that I never would, if the app is useful enough I would pay for it. It's just I've never found an app I really needed badly enough to buy. Then again, I only have a minimum of apps installed (mostly ad driven) because I'm probably not your typical example.

By the way, the phone is rooted with CM7 installed to give an idea of where I stand technical-wise.

I would wonder if there's some sort of correlation between the Mac and PC software development and marketing efforts. For some reason I feel a Mac user is more apt to buy a software package while a PC user would explore cheaper, or even free, options since so much of that is available in that market.

iPhone = premium device

Android = premium, medium and lower end devices.

I know many people that have cheap Android phones and never buy apps. I also know a few people (including myself) that own a top end Android device and buy a lot of apps (I have paid for 63 atm). Of course it not a rule (some people with lower end devices buy a lot of apps) but I think that is obvious that people with more money to spend on a phone are more prone to spend money on apps for the phone.

So just price then.

Also have any phones actually been banned from sale in the US yet? I thought HTC had time to change their product.

We suffer from a strange case of illegal trust between our three main network providers (four if we include the big reseller Virgin) in France, and sadly we have a hard time to convince the authorities to act, since we don't have the concept of a class-action lawsuit in our system.

edit: typos

I'm also implying that maybe under Apple's pressure, maybe with their cooperation, maybe against their will, the various french mobile operators settled on a common price for the iPhone that is way higher than when Orange had a monopoly, which is illegal as far as I know.

"The French market is showing increasing signs of price sensitivity" really is an euphemism for "The French see what you did there, Orange, Bouygues Telecom & SFR". Android has nothing to do with it, really.

I understood that HTC is from the US banned until they change their product, but you may be right.

Anyways, it's much harder for any non US company to compete with Apple (and Motorola) on US market. Take an example of Nokia which was absolute smartphone leader everywhere in the world excluding US. HTC and Samsung are in the similar position.

Siri is not even available for many european languages. It's not surprising the 4S sells better in english speaking countries.