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I use Missing Sync to load music from iTunes to my Android phone without problems. It's even automatic... (And you can sync movies, photos, contacts, calendars, notes, etc... As simple as clicking a button). For books, Aldiko is great and you can buy books from the app, but there are other apps you can use with no trouble too, and you won't get books removed because they have controversial topics, nudity or sex

The problem is that Missing Sync is not going to be reliable. It's 3rd party and Apple has no obligation to make sure it works every time Apple updates something with iTunes. On top of that, I am willing to bet that it's not even remotely as nice as iTunes. It probably looks and functions in an archiac manner and is probably buggy. How does renting movies and buying songs work on it? Does it work just like iTunes. Will Apple's system recognize and work with Missing Sync legitimately?

Case in point: A family member of mine bought the Blackberry Storm and it was supposed to be the iPhone killer (just like they all are). I know that the Storm is not the same as an Android phone but what they are both missing is the integrated ecosystem experience.

Long story short, he's a lawyer and doesn't have all weekend to spend on making things work nor is he a techie. He has an iPod which he used to watch movies on flights that he would rent on iTunes and on top of that he has a bunch of songs in iTunes. He asked me how he could watch movies on his Blackberry. I wasn't willing to waste a weekend to figure out how to convert movie files for him. He ends up carrying both his iPod and Blackberry just because he didn't have time to make it all work on one device.

I disagree... Anyone may want to use their phone's internet connection from another device at some point. They can't on iPhone. Anyone may want to view flash videos or read websites with Flash content. They can't on iPhone. Add to an arbitrary censoring process which removes any kind of nudity (sexual or not) or apps with swear words, duplicate functionality, emulators etc... (You can't even get an alternative web browser if it's not based on Apple's code).

Limited choice matters to everyone, geek or not.

Just remember, there is a price to pay for openness. Look at Linux. Sure you can get whatever you desire and configure whatevery you want to your hearts desire....but there is no integration, there is no focus, there is no overseeing authority that is looking at the entire system and experience from a users point of view. Each software is an independent entity that does things it's own way. On top of that you often have to download source code and compile things. You have to know how to work a unix command line. You need to know about packages, configuration, networking. How do you envision a non-technical person getting along with Linux? Case in point: Linux is godsend for techies who like to sit in their basement all weekend tinkering. Linux is absolutely horrible for 95% of the rest of the population!

I am a software developer and a techie. I use Linux all day long at work and it's really a pain in the a$$ sometimes. It's actually less stable, buggier and slower than my mac. I need to update kernel modules to get screen spanning working. It doesn't properly support a new Broadcom card in my Dell at work. The list goes on and on. I love coming home to my mac.

As I said there is a price to pay for openness. There are pros and cons to both sides. For 95% of people, the mac and iphone are better just because it all just works and integrates and is a user experience based philosophy from the hardware down to every software component which requires control to enforce it.
 
If the Tweetdeck guys are in bed with Eric Schmidt (and there's a mental picture we could all do without) then I think I need a new Twitter client.

Yeah... how dare the Tweetdeck guys talk about lord Jobs.
Lol you Apple fanboys are pathetic :rolleyes:
 
no open in this world

You can not make a phone out of Android source code. To have a complete open system, you will need open hardware and open network. That is not going to happen in this world. But wait, for end users, why they should care about this? They just want a phone that works best.

Even me, as a developer, I am more concerned about the consistency of the platform so my app will work well for my customers who actually bought the app (not copying from somewhere), I want them to be happy as they pay for my living. I don't care about openness but the quality of platform.

The only issue is that apple sometimes rejects the possibility to new ideas/functionalities. But I think it just takes time. You can't expect too much as iOS is around for only 3 years.

For Android to catch up, I think they should focus on providing a ripe product, not something half baked. Every time I look at the android UI, I lose the interest to develop for it. Let alone the story I heard from fellow developers how the API sucks.

OPENNESS is not a card to play in competition. GREATNESS is.
 
Not sure I got Steve's comment here though about multiple app stores -- don't we like having multiple places to shop for the same thing if those places are competing in prices?
This is true only from consumer's short term interest perspective. For a developer it's not necessarily a good thing. The Apple centralized approach is quite convenient for small-sized developers who can therefore focus on designing and improving their product instead of spending attention, time and energy on the distribution. So at the end of the day, the end-user benefits from it by having quality Apps.
It's often said that, fragmentation issues (or non-issues) aside, developing for Android is more accessible language-wise than developing for iOS which more or less forces you to learn Objective-C which is an odd language when compared to Java or C++. Yet, the iOS platform manages to be more attractive to developers because there's serious business to be made there.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Who cares about Tweetdeck? 'Sif you can't just navigate to www.twitter.com and us it. Without any modification it already looks like an iPhone/Android app.

Who cares about Android? It's Googles attempt to kill the iPhone, and it is failing.

Why did everybody donate billions to Google and make it a company that is nearly the size of Apple (it seriously is!!!), owns huuuge data mines and keeps raising the (largely secretive) price of adwords while inversely decreasing adsense payouts.

Why did we let Google do this? I much prefer:
- Bing
- Yahoo
- Excite
- Dogpile

... they give the same results and aren't Google.

Oh and I use an iPhone because it's an iPhone... not another cliched "iPhone killer." In the same was as I used a Walkman and a Discman...
 
Apple does the same thing.
When I had my 3GS i did not want to upgrade from 3.0 firmware. But it got to the point where all the new apps required I run 3.1 or no app.

Now you're gonna have people with 3G iPhones that will not be able to run 4.xx and up software. So it's fragmented as well.

That's quite absurd for an argument. First, 3G iPhones run iOS 4 (and even 2G if I'm not mistaken), granted some heavier apps might be sluggish but that's not an "OS fragmentation" issue, that's because of the hardware tech specs, issue that you will have with ANY device over time.
But most importantly, Apple doesn't anymore sell 2G or 3G iPhones while the new Android phones that are currently available on the market are running different versions of the OS with, on top of that, the phone maker and the carrier's customization. That sounds very unprofessional. Imagine that PC makers bundle the Windows version they want in new computers; hell that's not how it works. They bundle Windows 7 but afterward if the user wants to downgrade to Vista or XP it's their decision. Like your decision not to upgrade your iPhone from 3.0 - let me guess, because your device is JB, I'm sure. It's your right to choose so, but in such case the fragmentation is of your own making.
 
Ouch that gotta hurt Jobs, misusing someone words to try and make a point and then bu rebutted so fast.

Altough apple and jobs have been doing this for years, no doubt he is used to it by now.
 
That's quite absurd for an argument. First, 3G iPhones run iOS 4 (and even 2G if I'm not mistaken), granted some heavier apps might be sluggish but that's not an "OS fragmentation" issue, that's because of the hardware tech specs, issue that you will have with ANY device over time.
But most importantly, Apple doesn't anymore sell 2G or 3G iPhones while the new Android phones that are currently available on the market are running different versions of the OS with, on top of that, the phone maker and the carrier's customization. That sounds very unprofessional. Imagine that PC makers bundle the Windows version they want in new computers; hell that's not how it works. They bundle Windows 7 but afterward if the user wants to downgrade to Vista or XP it's their decision. Like your decision not to upgrade your iPhone from 3.0 - let me guess, because your device is JB, I'm sure. It's your right to choose so, but in such case the fragmentation is of your own making.

Actually thats not true:

Current version Device(s)
3.1.3 (7E18)
iPhone Original
iPod Touch 1st Generation
3.2.2 (7B500)
iPad
4.1 (8B117)
iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4
iPod Touch 2nd, 3rd and 4th Generations

add to that 2 different screen sizes, 3 different resolutions, different sensors, CPU's, GPU's and then apple TV isnt in all this.

It might not be as fragmented as android, but developing for IOS is also fragmented.
 
More fuel to the fire please.

Oh Yeah! more fuel to the fire, loving it cause like many others I realize the more they fight the better they get at offering more innovative products so the ones that ultimately win (granted not in millions on revenue) but in quality products for our cash is us, the consumers so I say HELL YEAH and good for Steve Jobs to always come out with a flame thrower.

I love that man's way of embracing technology/life and how he goes about starting fires everywhere, cause let me tell you everyone can try to start a fire (like Adobe's CEO that tries hard but merely sparkles mild reactions here and there) but not everyone can carry the amount of petrol Jobs can pack in a sentence cause wether you like him or hate him he just ignites the best/worst in people (sometimes both at the same time right?).

BTW: Tweetdeck? seriously? I started on Twitterrific but now I'm quite happy with the official Twitter app. Haven't try tweetdeck, anyone that has try it recommend jumping ship to them?
 
Trolling is cute when you're the underdog,
but just looks arrogant and silly when you're not.

Apple is no longer the underdog.
 
LoL to all

So many comments, so many views, so much potential violence. Ahh, the internet at it finest.

In the Tweetdeck developer's defense, I too would stand up and speak out if Jobs tried to twist my business and blog into sounding like my company had trouble with and would prefer not to do certain jobs.

They're developers; they make a living developing software. I'm pretty sure they don't mind what they develop for if there's a return in it for them.

With that in mind, it says a lot that they *did* develop a hundred Android SKUs.
 
The problem is that Missing Sync is not going to be reliable. It's 3rd party and Apple has no obligation to make sure it works every time Apple updates something with iTunes. On top of that, I am willing to bet that it's not even remotely as nice as iTunes. It probably looks and functions in an archiac manner and is probably buggy. How does renting movies and buying songs work on it? Does it work just like iTunes. Will Apple's system recognize and work with Missing Sync legitimately?

Well, all Missing Sync does is read playlist information and copy the files. I only have to interact with iTunes so the user experience is the same... I create playlists with the music I want and they get copied over to my Android phone automatically.

I guess Apple could change the playlist format but so far they haven't done so. Anyway, in Android I can just copy the files directly and as the iTunes library is conveniently ordered by Artists and Albums that wouldn't be much of an inconvenience anyway...

As for movies, over here you can't buy or rent movies from iTunes, so I can't really comment on that. Are they bought in some kind of encrypted format? But anyway, I've just installed vPlayer, a new app that reads (almost?) any video format and it works very well. As the Android phone gives you access to the files on its sd card when you connect it to the computer you can just copy whatever files you want directly from the computer. I've copied a bunch of kids shows I recorded from eyetv for my sons and they display perfectly...

Just remember, there is a price to pay for openness. Look at Linux. Sure you can get whatever you desire and configure whatevery you want to your hearts desire....but there is no integration, there is no focus, there is no overseeing authority that is looking at the entire system and experience from a users point of view. Each software is an independent entity that does things it's own way. On top of that you often have to download source code and compile things. You have to know how to work a unix command line. You need to know about packages, configuration, networking. How do you envision a non-technical person getting along with Linux? Case in point: Linux is godsend for techies who like to sit in their basement all weekend tinkering. Linux is absolutely horrible for 95% of the rest of the population!

I am a software developer and a techie. I use Linux all day long at work and it's really a pain in the a$$ sometimes. It's actually less stable, buggier and slower than my mac. I need to update kernel modules to get screen spanning working. It doesn't properly support a new Broadcom card in my Dell at work. The list goes on and on. I love coming home to my mac.

As I said there is a price to pay for openness. There are pros and cons to both sides. For 95% of people, the mac and iphone are better just because it all just works and integrates and is a user experience based philosophy from the hardware down to every software component which requires control to enforce it.

I see what you mean as I myself don't use Linux and instead have been using Macs since the 90's. But the Mac system although closed (it's not opensource, at least not totally) doesn't impose Apple's tastes on the user. It doesn't limit developers and doesn't censor applications. It doesn't make sense as it doesn't make sense on the iPhone/iPad.
 
Well, all Missing Sync does is read playlist information and copy the files. I only have to interact with iTunes so the user experience is the same... I create playlists with the music I want and they get copied over to my Android phone automatically.

I guess Apple could change the playlist format but so far they haven't done so. Anyway, in Android I can just copy the files directly and as the iTunes library is conveniently ordered by Artists and Albums that wouldn't be much of an inconvenience anyway...

As for movies, over here you can't buy or rent movies from iTunes, so I can't really comment on that. Are they bought in some kind of encrypted format? But anyway, I've just installed vPlayer, a new app that reads (almost?) any video format and it works very well. As the Android phone gives you access to the files on its sd card when you connect it to the computer you can just copy whatever files you want directly from the computer. I've copied a bunch of kids shows I recorded from eyetv for my sons and they display perfectly...

That's exactly my point. It can be done on Android but a user will need to do research, figure out what apps they will need and then try to make it work with iTunes. Lots of layers there and it doesn't sound like an integrated experience.

On my iPhone or iPad you literally have iTunes store running on your phone. You can rent/buy/preview movies on the fly, no need to connect to a computer with iTunes. You can also preview/buy songs. The next time you connect your iPhone/iPad to your computer, all the stuff will transfer over automatically to all the rest of your apple devices. All of a sudden I have that song that I bought on my phone on all my Macs and my Apple TV and my iPad. Now that is simple, sweet, and integrated ;)
 
applewwdc2010410rmeng.jpg


Time to shut up Mr. Jobs.

Last I checked, Apple is not shipping phones _today_ that will not run the latest OS. There are android phones shipping today that can never uprade to the latest OS. Even my brother-in-law's Moto Droid has been giving him performance issues ever since upgrading to Froyo which is similar to iPhone-3G users having issues with iOS 4 except that the Moto Droid is less than a year old, while the iPhone 3G is 2+ years old (big difference).

The issue here is that Google does not produce hardware and they deal with many manufacturers (kinda like Microsoft and PC manufacturers). Google cannot control what version of the OS the manufacturers choose to go with or if they will support future versions.

End result, you will get some brand new devices shipping that don't support the OS version you want to use.
 
Not shipping phones, but they're shipping the iPad which will not currently run the latest iOS, which is creating fragmentation.

Jobs did admit 2 versions of iOS to test against. At least the iPad _will_ run the latest OS (hopefully within 6 weeks). But even then, iPad is a different format than iPhone and hopefully app developers are creating apps that will take advantage of that display. The zoomed-in version of apps stinks for many apps (only about 30% pull it off well).

It kinda stinks for Android users that they can buy a phone today that will never run the latest OS. Certainly the most savvy Android users know how to avoid those devices, but the uneducated out there may be disappointed when they try to upgrade to what their buddy has.
 
Certainly the most savvy Android users know how to avoid those devices, but the uneducated out there may be disappointed when they try to upgrade to what their buddy has.

Most of the "uneducated" won't even miss the new features that their buddies have - their phones will work just as well as ever.

Don't buy a phone (or even a computer) expecting to receive upgrades forever. That doesn't work for Apples, it doesn't work for Androids.
 
The problem is that Missing Sync is not going to be reliable. It's 3rd party and Apple has no obligation to make sure it works every time Apple updates something with iTunes.

Actually, Apple wants other software to work with iTunes, and they publish the XML document format for the iTunes playlists.

Savvy Mac fans pointed this out when Palm kept trying less open workarounds for WebOS and iTunes.

On top of that, I am willing to bet that it's not even remotely as nice as iTunes. It probably looks and functions in an archiac manner and is probably buggy.

Anyone who wants their opinions to be taken seriously, should probably refrain from bashing something they haven't even seen. Here's a video of The Missing Sync to help.
 
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