Anyway. Set this aside.

Your eyes do not deceive you.

TechCrunch is saying nice thinks about Nokia.

Ok.

Well, they’re not precisely doing that. They’re reporting news that will have the iOS fanbois spitting out their cornflakes tomorrow morning: Windows Phone will overtake iOS by 2015?

You what?

That’s apparently what IDC and Gartner reckon:

Based on its history, you probably wouldn’t expect to see Windows Phone take off like a rocket. But apparently that’s what it’s going to do. Research out of Gartner and IDC says that Mango may grab a whopping 20 percent of the market by 2015, with the help of hardware partners like HTC and a little extra effort in the marketing department.

via Gartner, IDC: Windows Phone To Steal Second Place From iOS By 2015 | TechCrunch.

This is what I’ve been banging on about in the context of Apple. I’ve been consistently pointing out that Apple is going to have to go on the offensive soon.

For some reason, most of the folk I speak to seem to think that for Apple, the next decade is steady-as-she-goes, that it’s all pre-written. iPhone 5 this year, iPhone 6 next year, iPhone 7 the year after — and at this point, the whole planet will be using iPhones.

This is the received wisdom. Oh, yeah, maybe there will be some Android users too — and one or two small platforms still limping along.

This post is a neat little wake up call to those who have been drinking a little too much koolaid — for whatever reason.

Apple has already been taking a battering (as we say in Scotland) from those deeply, deeply unimpressed at the fact the company is being nailed by Android.

Of course there’s a pricing issue. Apple can’t touch the wider markets with it’s products. The wider markets simply can’t afford them. There’s nothing you can do to fit a $500 value handset into the hands of someone who can ONLY afford $55.

A $55 Android handset, on the other hand? Definitely. A $55 Windows Phone? Well, that’s perhaps a bit of a stretch but eminently possible within a few product cycles.

I’m looking forward to seeing Apple’s response in this area. Will the company simply stick to doing what it’s comfortable with (i.e. highly profitable niche player?) or will they reach way beyond this?

With $80 billion in cash right now — and goodness knows how much by the end of the next 2 quarters — those investors are going to continue to get mighty demanding. The profits are going to have to keep coming. And if Windows Phone starts to make a dent — alongside Android — I’m excited to see what defensive and offensive strategies Apple will adopt.

Gartner reckons LG now has eight percent of the market, thanks to a touchscreen-rich portfolio that picked up some reflected glory from the iPhone launch, while Sony Ericsson had a couple of gaps in its high and mid tier range that saw it struggle a bit in the last quarter.

Motorola meanwhile continues to slip and is now just two percent ahead LG and 2.5 percent ahead of Sony Ericsson. Given Motorola’s range is still desperately uninspiring at the moment, I wouldn’t bet against LG, Sony Ericsson or both overtaking its sales wise before too long.

Handset makers and enterprises need to get ready to address shifting demographics, the analysts say, and take into account “gender diversity and demographics”.

I’m always vaguely suspicious when gender gets brought into design. After all, it was the idea of better targeting women that spawned the awful and embarrassing trend for bringing device out in range of sugary, teeth grinding shades of pink. Please, no more. Equally, no more diet phones or phones that predict when you ovulate. Any chance we can see gender-differentiated handsets that aren’t condescending to the market they’re trying to target?