Oh I know those android developers are super dooper like you.
Actually, he's right. I downloaded the Android SDK and dealing with different versions of the OS is pretty much a no-brainer.
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Game Developers Scaling Back Android Efforts as iPhone Continues to Dominate
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Actually, he's right. I downloaded the Android SDK and dealing with different versions of the OS is pretty much a no-brainer.
Really? Can you say this with a straight face? You realize Apple' strategy with the phone is specifically to differentiate it with its software, right? So, regarding the OS... let's see... App Store with iPhone 2.0, so... with 3.0, you're saying "nothing" has changed? I refuse to describe to you why iPhone 3.0 is a quantum leap over iPhone 2.0. It would be like saying why a telephone is better than two cups and string.
Maybe? This sounds like a ridiculous distinction. If you're going to criticise Apple, at least give them their due, before you stab them in the back. The ONLY reason the iPhone is a product worthy of note is because they SOLVED a number of consumer problems EXTREMELY well. No "maybe". This is born out in survey after survey of customer satisfaction, and it is not simply "hype" that drives new phone offerings to be compared to the iPhone.
Nope, it was the speed increase and the video recording. Where have you been? Did Apple do any commercial that merely demonstrated... the compass? That should tell you that you may be looking at a distorted (read: non-objective) view of the latest out of Cuperino.
So, Apple is simply keeping "cool stuff" from iPhone owners? No, they're trying to make sure they have a platform that stands the test of time. I'm REALLY concerned about competition, because your opinion is a fairly common meme in the tech industry. "iPhone ALL HYPE no real innovation." This concerns me, because until competitors realize that this opinion is idiotic, and identify exactly what Apple is actually doing to win consumer loyalty, encourage a thriving mobile marketplace, and build a solid technological ecosystem... there will BE no real competition... just the illusion of it. That almost ANGERS me. Android is the closest to "real" competition the iPhone has seen, but it has a number of glaring flaws that strike deep to its root. Moreover, I'm pretty sure Google can give it its best effort... never solve the problems that prevent Android from gaining traction... and still be absolutely happy it has marginalized competitors like RIM and Microsoft. That is a recipe for mediocrity. While Google, in my opinion, is a bold innovative company... its goals do not require it to dominate on the mobile platform. It just needs to gain leverage over companies that are more insular and less about Internet/web standards than companies like itself and Apple.
Exactly. Right now, the Android is primed to gain a lot of traction. I went to a Verizon kiosk and played with it. It was very nice, but it wasn't an iPhone. As I drilled down, I started seeing some of the "geeky" things about it, that made me feel it was more about being nerdware, than the consumate consumer-friendly device.
I'm VERY troubled by its concept of "openness". I'm troubled two-fold. On the one hand, I love the "idea" of open-ness, and Google has set itself up as the posterchild for that ideal. However, because they have done this, they have also made themselves a target for the big "I TOLD YOU SO" if their concept doesn't make ultimate sense.
Google's concept of "openness" (as I understand it) is to allow the USER to decide what runs and doesn't run on their phone. Where the iPhone asks you if you want an application to know your location (everytime), Google Androidinforms you on installation that a given program wants access to a specific set of APIs and resources.
Most consumers won't know an API from a PMI. If Android ever gains significant marketshare, social-engineering will cause spammers, spyware, malware, etc to have a field day. On Google, each devleoper account costs a one-time set-up of $25... and then they can release unlimited apps into the marketplace. Because the marketplace is SO uninteresting and problem-ridden... there's not a huge target audience for anyone to really manipulate yet. When there is... I can imagine a spectrum of ways to screw Android users. If I can... THEY can.
Also... enough with the Google Voice (to many people point to that without really knowing why it does... or should... bother them). I'm sure Apple doesn't want to cede control of their platform to a third-party. That's a no-brainer.
Google has recently aquired Gizmo Project. Google Voice, especially on the iPhone, is a not-so-transparent attempt to take over a MAJOR feature of the phone and gradually have Apple lose control of their own platform. "Study" it? Of course Apple needs to "study" it. With AT&T set to allow VOIP over its data plans, Google Voice providing access to an alternative voice mail feature, and literally allowing people to generate a mobile-phone abstraction layer connecting them to everything... if it becomes popular, it can quickly cause no end of consumer confusion.
If Google were simply Skype... that's be one thing... but Google has more disruptive plans than simply allowing digital voice messages. With PUSH notification, Google could actually replace the Phone.app and Messages.app entirely... swapping them out with one app for everything and immediately setting a very problem-ridden precedent. At some point in the future... this WILL be the way to go. We're not there yet.
Google is such a big player... if anyone let's them have cart blanche with ANY and all services on their mobile platform (the iPhone being amongst the most powerful candidates for this) their decisions begin to impact your users more than yours do. It takes a lot of thought to see the long-term ramifications of it all.
If anyone gives a lot of thought to their mobile platform... its Apple.
~ CB
Yeah, except in areas where network coverage isn't even available....and when it is, it's horrible. iPhone's popularity isn't the problem...at all. The Droid's slow launch and lack of applications are the problem. They will be fixed eventually.
The term abysmal is generous. Of course, in many cases, it's irrelevant given the immense gaps in service coverage in so many areas.
What? No he didn't. Re-read his post.
Again, you are putting words in my mouth and inventing scenarios, Jesus.
For the third and last time, I'm not denying that. I'm just saying that while the iPhone is a good phone and people who use it like it, it doesn't make competing devices inferior or bad, or mock-worthy, like you guys (those 3 guys that are always defending apple even if nothing wrong was said about them) always make them look.
You said first that Android's piracy level must be 100% since developers aren't making money out of it. I was just asking you how in the world would you come up with such an strange (for the lack of more polite words) conclusion. But that's ok, keep believing that Google will die, that Nokia will die and that Motorola will die. I'm sure you are all looking forward to an all-apple world (sort of Walle's BnL if you think about it).
I'm sorry Cleverboy, but a closed technological ecosystem only slows down competition/innovation and while it's good for companies since they'll make ********s of money, it ends up being bad for the industry and for the customers. You said you are concerned, well, I fear people who will simply accept and believe that such a closed system as the App Store will end up being beneficial for the industry. (Denying Google Voice or Opera Mobile is probably one of the biggest anti-competitive moves I've seen recently, that everyone seemed to just ignore)
Ya, open source is known for spammers, spyware, malware, etc. You see it all the time on Linux and not on closed architectures like Windows. The above is just flat out wrong.
Listening to my music library, receiving messages, e-mail, and using the browser right now on the iPhone.
While making or taking a call - receiving messages, browsing contacts, e-mail, web pages, using apps, etc.
While recording - receiving messages, browsing contacts, e-mail, web pages, using apps, etc.
All the time, greatly appreciating the incredibly fast response time and snappiness of the iPhone OS.
yes I have, the 64GB iPod touch is finally down to the price that the 60GB iPod photo was five years ago. It is going to take a while, and the price will have to come down, come down a lot.
Well no, Apple was rather slow in updating. Remember copy and paste? Even the more simple, basic phones were carrying such features, so Apple had to do something about it.
Its a flagship phone, in its own market. Even with the failures from Nokia, Samsung, etc, Apple will always be watching its back, not for an iPhone killer, but purely for the cheap phones that identify what is missing from the iPhone, and will make people think twice about purchasing one.
I'm in this situation at the moment anyway. If the next iPhone doesn't have a good camera, I don't think I'll be taking it.
Yes I am a market trends expert and since Android hasn't come anywhere close to being top since it was released and going by what I see from Android 2.0 and Droid I don't see it taking them to the top. If you don't agree sue me.
What does that have to do with AT&T's network supporting 80 million subs? Just because you have a crappy experience with AT&T doesn't hold true for everyone and no, not everyone is on AT&T for the iphone. Also not everyone is happy with Verizon's network.
That is not the case everywhere. I've used the iphone in Northern New Jersey around Newark, the Oranges, Irvington and had no problems.
You've noticed that too right. The dude is just not anti-iphone, he's anti-Apple. He always tries to spin anything about the iphone or Apple into a negative light. It's like some of these people have a personal vendetta against Apple and Steve Jobs. People want to talk about fanboys, these haters are 10 times worse. The dude jumped on the Palm Pre bandwagon for months, now that it has faded into oblivion, he has jumped on the Droid and Android. When that phone fades into oblivion in a couple of months, he'll jump onto another one.
In full:
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Not to be too condescending, but I think it's amusing to watch the old-school techies in the past couple years finally get around to paying attention to the mobile market that I've had been ranting about exclusively for the better part of the past decade. Tim Bray has a post today about the Android OS, dismissing the idea that there's splintering going on, or that it's a big deal if there is.
Well, actually, I have to say there *is* splintering going on, and it *is* a big deal. The splintering isn't in the traditional "binary break" style that one normally thinks of when using that word, but it's still just as deadly to a platform.
First, back up and look at a couple other mobile OSs, and how they handle compatibility:
The iPhone and iPod touch run the latest and greatest version of their OS because of Apple's tight control of the both the hardware and software, and ability to ignore the carriers. Pretty much, no matter if you have a first generation EDGE version of the iPhone from 2007 or the latest 3GS, the OS is pretty much the same, and thus the user and developer experience doesn't change either. (Except in instances where the iPod touch user doesn't pony up the $10 or whatever to upgrade - or a developer uses the new graphics hardware on the 3GS). We can all see the benefits of this model.
On the flip side of this is what Nokia (my employer) has done, which is slightly tweak the Symbian/S60 version of the OS for every new phone that comes out, letting the carrier add additional tweaks, and not really attempting to homogenize the various versions through (rarely applied) updates. Multiply the number of models per year (10-20) by the number of years Symbian's been around by the various custom carrier modifications, and you get complete developer and consumer confusion.
Okay, now you have Android. I recently bought an Archos 5, which I'm very happy with as a gadget. However, it's stuck on v1.5 of the Android OS right now, with a custom GUI extension added to make up for its lack of keys and home/menu/back. Additionally, it's not a Google-sanctioned distribution, so there's no Android Marketplace, nor able to run any of the important Google apps: Mail, IM, Maps, etc.
So is there binary compatibility? Sure. But only if the apps are written very carefully (or simply). Case in point is an SSH app I downloaded for the Archos 5 - it assumes you have a real keyboard, and thus doesn't provide the ability to use important combos (like control+anything) since the virtual keyboard doesn't do that. It's thus unusable, though it does "run". Additionally there are apps that ACTUALLY just won't run for whatever reason - no idea why maybe API calls or assumptions about file structure that shouldn't have been made, or whatever. On the Archos forums, users are swapping lists of apps that work and don't work (or semi-work).
As a technical user I can understand why this is happening - the platform is young, manufacturers are rushing out products and there hasn't been any sort of standards put in place yet.
But to a normal end user - they expect that if they see the friendly green Android on the box, that it'll work the same and run the same software as their shiny new smartphone. Right now that isn't the case, nor will it be in the foreseeable future. Compare the Verizon Droid to the T-Mobile G1 to the Archos 5 to the various other products (eBooks, HTC phones) running on Android and you get very vastly different experiences and capabilities. Whether or not that's "technically" splintering doesn't matter - it makes things difficult for everyone involved: developers, consumers, manufacturers, etc.
Can you write an .apk application that runs on all devices? Theoretically, yes. But not without testing on an ever-increasing number of gadgets. This is the problem that Symbian and J2ME phones have, and the road that Android is headed down if Google doesn't reign in control and quickly. Differing OS versions, different manufacturer and carrier customizations, and various app stores are going to hobble the OS before too long.
All that said, I still believe it's got a real future after using it regularly on my Archos, but Google needs to get control quickly. I had originally suggested using the Android logo and trademark (which they may or may not own) as a way of ensuring compatibility, but it seems the logo is creative commons. So maybe they need to come up with an "Android Approved" logo or something.
Regardless, the point is that splintering is happening, right now, and it's not something that'll fix itself without serious effort. The alternative is not a free-market style survival of the fittest, but simply a broken ecosystem and a lost opportunity to create a truly open alternative to the Apple mobile juggernaut.
- Russ
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if you go by the logic the iPhone is STILL the 3rd best smart phone out there because both the Android phones, and BB has had more market growth than the iPhone in the last quarter. Both of them has taken up more of the marketshare than apple.
I never said total market share. I just said marketshare growth and it was more pointed out a flaw in the guys logic.
Go and re-read what you wrote. Also show me evidence that Android is growing faster than the iphone OS. Android is not a phone, it's an OS. I'm waiting for your evidence.
So you're saying that Apple didn't have an instant success with the first iPhone ? Then you're judging Google on their very first phone, the G1 ?
Double standards much ?
Android is following the same path as the iPhone. Android Market will grow, their market share will grow (especially with so many handsets on so many carriers), just like the iPhone's did.
Yes, market growth is such a good indicator. Because going from 1% market share to 2% market share is a 100% growth! Much better than going from 10% market share to 15% market share right which is just 50% ? Right ?
Oh wait no...
Market growth means jack squat, especially in the first few years a company enters a market. Of course their growth will be "phenomenal", they had none to begin with. And last quarter, Apple got beat by both Nokia and RIM as far as hardware sales go :
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/arti...rew_iphone_up_android_reaching_critical_mass/
So they are still overall 3rd, and they had the 3rd biggest growth. Notice how their growth numbers are becoming lower and lower. That's very normal once your product is better established.
Don't be ridiculous, market growth is just something Goona and *LTD* use to put a positive spin on everything. In the end, it means nothing.
We'll actually never quite know how well Android is doing because market share is reported by hardware vendor and not platform. Unless you can find data about platforms. However, we can see HTC had 14% growth in the last quarter, and they've been moving to Android for a lot of their handsets. Of course, in Q3, they were also about the only Android player around. Q4 should be interesting with all the new players (Motorola, Samsung, LG) and in Q1 when Sony Ericsson enters the fray with the X10.
And you go re-read, he did write MARKET GROWTH. Not share. So much for you being a trends expert and not just some positive spinner with too much time on his hands.
Hmmmm, didn't know the Xperia X10 will be using Android. Funny how everyone is finally dumping WM eh?
Anyways, you nailed it, "double standards". I couldn't have found any better term to describe them.
Nothing wrong with that. Not every phone has to be an iPhone, designed for the lowest user denominator.
(Personally, I need to check out the HTC Eris. A lot of my friends' wives have gotten one lately and love it.)
The Apple update situation is better than say, WinMo, because the updates are available to everyone. But it's not the idyllic scenario that guy describes.
Not everyone hooks up to iTunes and updates their software all the time... after all, that's not what you would call a "consummate consumer-friendly" device. Such a device would be automatically updated OTA during down times.
Heck, last I checked, 25% of iPhone/touch (mostly touch) OS users were still back on 2.x. And a quarter of iPhones weren't up to date.
As for all the hand-wringing about Android's "problems"...
1) Apple has a lot of device differentiation as well: from GPS to compass to speed to graphics API availability to audio I/O to amount of RAM.
2) Apple has gone through app limitations, too. From none allowed, to now 2GB max and 10 MB 3G download. Not to mention the current silly homescreen limitation on number of apps.
But everything evolves.
So you're saying that Apple didn't have an instant success with the first iPhone ? Then you're judging Google on their very first phone, the G1 ?
Double standards much ?
Android is following the same path as the iPhone. Android Market will grow, their market share will grow (especially with so many handsets on so many carriers), just like the iPhone's did.
Yes, market growth is such a good indicator. Because going from 1% market share to 2% market share is a 100% growth! Much better than going from 10% market share to 15% market share right which is just 50% ? Right ?
Oh wait no...
Market growth means jack squat, especially in the first few years a company enters a market. Of course their growth will be "phenomenal", they had none to begin with. And last quarter, Apple got beat by both HTC and RIM as far as hardware sales go :
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/arti...rew_iphone_up_android_reaching_critical_mass/
So they are still overall 3rd, and they had the 3rd biggest growth. Notice how their growth numbers are becoming lower and lower. That's very normal once your product is better established.
Don't be ridiculous, market growth is just something Goona and *LTD* use to put a positive spin on everything. In the end, it means nothing.
We'll actually never quite know how well Android is doing because market share is reported by hardware vendor and not platform. Unless you can find data about platforms. However, we can see HTC had 14% growth in the last quarter, and they've been moving to Android for a lot of their handsets. Of course, in Q3, they were also about the only Android player around. Q4 should be interesting with all the new players (Motorola, Samsung, LG) and in Q1 when Sony Ericsson enters the fray with the X10.
And you go re-read, he did write MARKET GROWTH. Not share. So much for you being a trends expert and not just some positive spinner with too much time on his hands.
Going from your link, HTC didn't beat Apple in hardware sales. Only Nokia and RIM did. So what is it?
You are the one who needs to re-read genius. Tell me what this statement means:
"taken up more of the marketshare" than Apple.
And also I'm waiting for concrete evidence that Android is growing faster than the iphone or iphone OS.
Well Cleverboy did condition his statement by noting "significant marketshare" - a term which certainly does not apply to Linux in the consumer marketplace. And to be fair, it also doesn't apply to OS X, either, which is why the Mac platform has been spared much of the grief, as well.