Hi, I'm Michael Mistretta, a student passionate about technology, photography, and design. Welcome to my online home where I write about technology, reviews, and my thoughts and opinions on technology-related matters. As a consumer, I love my iPhone. After the 2.1 update, I couldn’t be happier with my phone. Battery life, reception, dropped calls, bugs—they’ve all been fixed. Sure the occasional application crashes, but the same happens on my computer.
As a developer, the iPhone is a pain. Apple’s secrecy, restrictive NDA, and AppStore rejection policies make iPhone development nothing more than a game. A game with money. Lots of money.
Regardless, I was told that there was something better. Something open. Something that would be the iPhone’s platform “done right”. And for a moment, I believed it.
I woke up last Tuesday excited about Android and the T-Mobile G1. Finally, an open platform that anyone and everyone can develop for. No more closed environments. No more proprietary systems. Must be better, right?
The G1 represents everything that is wrong with open platforms. From the clunky brick-like hardware to the typefaces used in the interface to the Android Market, everything is oozing with it—a lack of attention to detail. Screenshots look like they come from completely separate devices, and represent an overall lack of polish. Still, some say, there is more to a phone than “pretty buttons” and “business support”.
Just how much am I supposed to give up to be ‘open’?
How Open is ‘Open’?
As much as everyone would like to believe that Google can create a completely open platform where anyone can do anything, they are bound by the same limitations as Apple and other cell manufacturers. T-Mobile, not unlike other cell carriers, restricts unlocking the G1 from their cell network, and prevents tethering it to a computer1.
T-Mobile placed a 1GB cap on the G1, hardly adequate for a power-user, and would slow any additional 3G traffic to slower-than-EDGE speeds it users passed that cap. Since then, they have backed away from that statement claiming that they will only throttle bandwidth for “a small fraction” of “heavy-data users”. Whatever that means.
There’s also the fact that you can only sync contacts and calendars with your Google account. While this is a solid (free) competitor to MobileMe, it defeats the purpose of the phone being completely open.
AppStore Methodologies
People’s excitement over Android’s “open” philosophy is only escalated by the recent news of Apple rejecting apps that are too simple, too competitive, or just plain stupid. Google takes the opposite extreme, allowing anything into the Android Market. Developers can develop whatever-the-heck-they-want, and they are guaranteed admittance.
With no gatekeeper, comes no restrictions—both good and bad. The obvious downside to this is malware, spyware, and other malicious apps. It will be left up to the user’s desecration whether or not to download an app that may drain battery life or send your personal data back to some random server in China. On the flip side, developers have no restrictions for what they can or cannot develop. They are free to develop, compete, and innovate.
An open platform may have worked had there only been a single device. But Android is a multi-year project that will encompass a wide scope of devices with hundreds of varying user interfaces. Touchscreens to trackballs to keyboards to accelerometers. How can 50+ different phones made by different companies with different interfaces possibly function with apps in the Android Market?
Mark my word, three years from now, the Android Market will be a mess. Users will download—or even worse, purchase—an app, only to find that they have no way to interact with it because their phone lacks a touchscreen. Think there are a lot of flashlights and tip calculators in the AppStore now? Wait till you see the Android Market in 3 months.
Even if Google tries to restrict apps with certain capablities to certain devices, it will still be filled with a junky, inconsistent, and buggy mess. There is no one standard that all the apps in the Market have to adhere to. With everyone and their mother able to develop and publish apps, who will sift through them to make sure they are marked as “Touchscreen-only”? Sure, certain developers will be able to innovate and create apps worth buying, but from the initial screenshots of the Android Market, they will be hard to find—buried in more junk than a landfill on Boxing Day.
Some equate this “openness” argument to the OS X vs Windows argument today. Windows can be installed on any PC, which has lead to it owning 90% of the market today. While that argument has certain merit, it does not account for the fact that all PCs—including Macs—work the same way they have for the past 25 years. Every PC has a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen: and Windows looks pretty similar across them all.
Phones are very different though. There are different ways of interacting and working with applications. There are different UIs. There are different features. Imagine supporting thousands of people using your application across hundreds of different devices.
As cynical as it may sound, there is a certain beauty to closed platforms. Having a controlled environment ensures consistency and functionality, and provides a better experience for the end user. The AppStore offers many benefits to developers, but it is far from perfect. I think the ideal platform meets somewhere in the middle. Like it or not, gatekeepers have their place. But having a closed-system should not hinder the innovation of a platform—only raise the bar on the quality of applications developed.
People much smarter than me have already dissected this issue. Wil Shipley hits the nail on the head:
The App Store needs to think of itself as two different parts - it already implements these parts, but the people who run the store need to understand that these two parts are fundamentally separate:
Part one is a giant warehouse, where every piece of software that is not actively harmful is kept in case someone wants to buy it (remember, users can always get a refund). This warehouse can be searched with titles and keywords or an item can be directly linked.
Part two is like a traditional storefront, with limited real estate, so only the best or coolest applications are highlighted. It’s a recommendation engine, that highlights popular, highly-rated, or innovative applications.
Here’s to hoping that Apple will listen to developers and change the way they govern the AppStore.
G1, meet the iPhone
The iPhone was marketed as an iPod, a smartphone, and an internet communicator. Now, third-party applications can also be seen as a major selling point. With the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack, dedicated video player, and desktop syncing, the G1 is hardly a media-centric device. It barely compares to the iPod. Surprising for Google, the G1 has a significantly laggy web-browser with a clumsy UI that leads to a lackluster mobile internet experience. That leaves the phone side of things, which I haven’t seen a single screenshot published to date.
That doesn’t mean that Google hasn’t thought through some of the major flaws of the iPhone and corrected them in Android. The G1’s notification bar involves a single swipe from the top of any window, and is miles ahead of the “popup” notifications on the iPhone. One-time login into your Google account looks simple and straight forward, and the home screen is much more customizable than the iPhone.
But there are many more substantial flaws within the user interface. Fonts seems as if they were randomly picked on a per-application basis, and consistency is non-exsistant. In fact, looking at screenshots from the G1 user manual often reflect the UI of what should be multiple devices. But really, the problem lies with the lack of attention to detail Google has. Great engineers, but very poor designers.
Take for example the physical keyboard (the only physical feature besides the 3.2MP camera that bests the iPhone). Imagine working in a vertical-oriented app, and being prompted to enter a password. The user must rotate the device horizontally, slide up the keyboard, type in the password, slide down the keyboard, and rotate the phone back to the vertical orientation. Compare this with the iPhone, where the (albeit virtual) keyboard slides up right when you need it, and disappears when you don’t.
All this is above and beyond the clunky hardware, that looks as if it was inspired from the Amazon Kindle. One Google engineer points out that throughout the whole three-year development process, the design has remained exactly the same. With a 3-year old design, how can you compete with something like the iPhone?
My question is not whether “openness” in and of itself is good—but whether it can be a major selling feature to a device that offers an inferior user experience. The iPhone and the G1 are quite comparable in price—$179 and $199 respectively (although the G1 requires an extra micro-SD card to expand it’s measly 1GB of storage). For the same price, are consumers going to chose the G1 simply because it’s open?
My feelings about Android are very similar to John’s: it’s a platform that I had high hopes for, but very low expectations. If Google had offered a phone of this caliber for free, with occasional location-based “notification ads” informing me that I was 2 minutes away from Domino’s Pizza, and if I went in the next 20 minutes could save 20% off my order, I think this phone would be a huge success.
Sergey Brin said it: this phone is for geeks. The tinkering crowd. The ones that like to tear apart their gadgets from top to bottom and be in complete control. And for those geeks, this is the phone they’ve been waiting for. For the rest of us? I’m not so sure.
It’s too early to judge the success of the platform as a whole. There are many Android phones that will be released on a variety of carriers come 2009. While there’s no doubt Android is far ahead of other phone operating systems like Windows Mobile—and will be for quite awhile, by the looks of it—it seems to miss the mark on the reason I own an iPhone.
I don’t own an iPhone for it’s features. It’s quite pathetic to own a smartphone that can’t copy and paste or record video. I don’t own an iPhone to be open. I don’t own an iPhone to tinker and play with. I own an iPhone because I can wake up every morning and actually enjoy using my phone. The consistency—the experience—is something that other manufacturers (including Google) don’t get. And I’m not sure that an open platform of any kind can ever achieve the attention to detail and experience that Apple has given to the iPhone.
- It’ll be interesting to see how T-Mobile plans to enforce this on the G1, considering that anyone could write an unlocking or tethering app, and distribute it in the Android Market. ↩
No. Wrong. You have it all wrong. HTC made an awful phone, and in my opinion, Android OS isn’t as polished as iPhone OS. But none of this has anything to do with open source. I have an iPhone. I’m… speechless, so I’m not going to say anymore. But seriously. You have it totally wrong. Jeez.
Comment by AriX — September 29, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
You make seemingly good points, but one thing you don’t understand is that, over time, innovation will be limited on the iPhone. You have to wait for Apple to be bother with creating new UI elements, new interfaces to hardware… Eventually every app will (literally) look exactly the same (too much the same) and can only do the same things because Apple hasn’t bothered to update some random API.
Also, the security model in Android is top-notch. Every app runs as its own user on the system and can only access what you specifically give it permission to.
Similarly, the Android Market will only allow you to download apps which your hardware can support. It’s my belief that over time, the hardware on smartphones will pretty much standardize with perhaps the exception of a QWERTY keyboard or not and a touch screen or not — much like the PC market has.
What’s most important to note, however, is that unlike the App Store, the Market is NON-exclusive. Handango, for example, will have an Android store available for developers to sign up for on October 1. If you as a developer want to hsot the download on your website, or if you want to set up a freeware or paid app catalog absent of the significant cruft that will be the Android Market, go right ahead! Google doesn’t care.
Now, as for the “inconsistent” UI, you only think that because Gizmodo, which has been on a pro-iPhone, anti-Android tear lately, decided you should believe that’s the case.
I haven’t found it to be terribly inconsistent, and you know what? The average consumer doesn’t care. If they did, no one would be using Windows.
Plus, I found your rant on “open means unusable” to be quite inconsiderate and shows your ridiculous ignorance on technology in general. You have one narrow point of view and are unwilling to consider others’ as they’re not what Steve Jobs subscribes to.
If you think that open is unusable, go back to MacOS9 and before. Don’t forget that you’re precious Mac OS X is built on a fork of FreeBSD (from which Apple contributes back very little), which obviously was usable enough for Apple to integrate as the essential part of Mac OS X.
Also, get off of any WebKit browser — or, as a better example to your beliefs — GET OFF THE WEB. Damn shame Apple couldn’t shape the web and make it all closed and shiny.
But you want to know the biggest benefit of openness? Others can fix Android’s flaws. If copy and paste wasn’t included in 1.0, it would take someone a very short period of time to write an app that adds universal copy and paste. Tunewiki is being welcomed into the Android ecosystem by Google. Imagine that! A technically competing app WELCOMED with open arms (and lots of money).
Finally, does it matter that this isn’t an iPod competitor? Would anything other than an iPhone stop people from buying an iPod anyway? I bet a ridiculously small percentage of people know their BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device can play their music and videos, and even if more did, they’d still get or keep an iPod.
By the way — one example of Apple stifling innovation? Video capture. The default camera app on the G1 doesn’t do video capture, but Google offers tutorials in the documentation as to how to implement it. Obviously you can do the same thing with iPhone OS, but Apple would never allow it. Who knows why.
On a final note (for real this time), the browser was choppy for some and not for others on the demo devices. The build of Android shipping on the G1 from what we can see has fixed that choppy scrolling flaw — or even if it doesn’t, such a fix clearly exists and will quickly be pushed in an update. See Google’s developers’ videos on their favorite parts of Android; those issues have been fixed.
Ben
Comment by Ben Feldman — September 29, 2008 @ 8:55 pm
Obviously, we both prioritize different things. I don’t find hosting apps on other websites more important than the the interface being consistent. But that’s just me. Like I said, at a lower price, the Android would be killer. It would rock the market. But at the same price as the iPhone, I don’t think “average consumers” are going to consider open-source a feature.
Now, if Apple totally drops the ball, and Android has some killer app that makes everyone want a G1, then the tide may turn. Right now there are too many hypotheticals.
I’m willing to see how this plays out, but all you Google fanboys can’t be downplaying every limitation of the G1 just because it “can be fixed” by the open-source community.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — September 29, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
Who honestly gives a damn about the G1. It isn’t about this one device. It’s about the platform in general being on DOZENS of devices.
And you want to know something? The big difference is that *I* can fix it. APPLE doesn’t have to fix it. YOU can if you want. Does that give Google an excuse for leaving features out? No — not at all (quite to the contrary as I imagine open source code for a lot of the issues is readily available).
But I can build video recording into my app, even though Apple’s official Camera app doesn’t. That means something to me.
Dozens of devices will overall sell more than one device with two storage levels and two colors. The platforms with the larger user bases will attract more developers, doing more innovative things. Their apps may not be as shiny, but they’ll do a hell of a lot more. Apple shutting down creativity of well-intentioned developers doesn’t do them any good. It’s not a GOOD thing that Apple is closed. Hell, your pining for Apple to be more contradicts your whole post! Apple can’t be right about everything.
Also, while open may not initially be a selling point to consumers, once apps with more advanced functionality come out, it indirectly *will* be. And, to a bigger extent, it makes a difference to handset manufacturers who can build and innovate and tweak Android to their own phone’s specifications (plus there’s no licensing fees). More handset manufacturers and carriers pushing Android, more consumers will end up with Android devices — again, because of openness (if not sort of indirectly).
Comment by Ben Feldman — September 29, 2008 @ 9:03 pm
How is the G1 everything WRONG with open platforms? Open platforms mean that the platform is open to ANYTHING: Ugly devices, beautiful devices, God devices, ugly interfaces, gorgeous interfaces–whatever the developer wants to do. It’s not about one company–which to Apple is just them–it’s about everybody.
Little disclaimer: I’m NOT a Google fanboy. I love Apple and would probably have an iPhone if I had reception. In the mean time, I have a BlackBerry that I love that is also essentially open with it’s Java interface. Just open to applications, not system level like Android.
Yes, there will probably be malicious apps, but that doesn’t mean Google can’t block access to that app or that T-Mobile can prevent it from connecting to the network. The OS maker doesn’t have to be the one to stop all apps. Look at OS X and Windows–e.g. Viruses.
The whole idea of “How can 50 different phones made by different companies with different interfaces possibly function with apps in the Android Market” makes absolutely no sense. Look at Windows Mobile devices–touchscreen/not touchscreen, physical keyboard/virtual keyboard, different camera options, speakers, radios, GPS radios, etc. If something isn’t supported, it’s not hard for the maker to customize the OS to their liking. It wouldn’t be hard at all to implement a feature built into the background of the marketplace for only non-touchscreen apps to show up on those phones. So that argument isn’t valid.
And let’s not get started on comparing the G1 to the iPhone. Okay, let’s.
The G1 is not a competitor to the iPhone in any department. If anything, it’s more of a proof-of-concept. What concept? That an open-phone system can survive. Nowhere does it claim to be a media-centric device.
And perhaps Android has a virtual keyboard like WinMo devices. It does have a touchscreen, after all.
And once again, let’s not shoot the G1 for it’s 1GB of storage… IT’S NOT A MEDIA CENTRIC DEVICE! If it was going to be media centric, it’d have a better media player and a headphone jack. Is that honestly all it takes to be media centric? In that case, I’ll deem my BlackBerry media centric.
Who gives a damn if the G1 isn’t the prettiest device? The RAZR is ugly anymore and tons of people still use them. There will be more devices to be released and they will be tons “prettier.”
Openness is better, something the RDF seems to have sheltered from you apparently.
Comment by Zach Flauaus — September 29, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
The problem *is* that the platform will run on dozens of devices, with no standardization. Some devices will have multi-touch, while others won’t. Some will have a built-in camera while other’s won’t.
When you write an application for the iPhone, you know what hardware it will run on and what features are available. You have only two devices: one has a built-in camera, GPS, and cellular connectivity while the other doesn’t. You can be sure that any app you buy will work on your device.
Anyone developing Android apps will need to deal with an infinite variety of devices with different capabilities. It’s inevitable that many apps won’t work properly on some of those devices, depending on which ones the developer was able to test it on. When you have one of those devices, you can’t be sure that any app you buy will run on it.
It would be nice if alternate distribution methods are available for the iPhone, but having a consistent hardware platform is a big advantage, both for developers and users.
Comment by Mike Cohen — September 29, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
Not that I expected to hear anything else from the open source fanboys around here ;), but I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here, Michael.
The idea of an open Android OS is good on paper, but it just cannot plan out. Apple has a few major things wrong with the iPhone, but overall they have right what makes the Mac so great: They know what software is running on what hardware under what conditions, and thus, bugs and issues are much easier to target.
As more and more and more handsets for Android flood the market, it would be as if computer manufacturers began making computers, some which exclusively were voice based, some half and half touch and mouse driven, some with touch capabilities, and some without, and Windows (and more importantly all the programs and their developers) had to keep up.
Comment by Adam Fisher-Cox — September 29, 2008 @ 10:30 pm
@Adam
Because the iPhone OS was planned out in the beginning? The iPhone had lots of flaws in the beginning and, as you said, still does have flaws.
Windows Mobile is a successful mobile platform and is not based on one sole device that Microsoft can control. Why can’t Android be the same?
Comment by Zach Flauaus — September 29, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
There’s not doubt the G1 is a first gen stab at an android phone. It does not come close to touching the iPhone in the design department, and some of the hardware specifications are a bit boggling (1GB, no standard audio jack, no stereo blue tooth?).
That being said, I’m excited to see what the open source community does with it. I look around at some of the applications I use every day, including OS X and Firefox, and I thank the technology lords for the open source projects which allowed these applications to exist at all. That makes me look forward to what we may see with Android.
It’s way to early in the game to declare Android a failure or a success. I think we should all root for it to succeed. Healthy competition in the marketplace will always result in a win for the consumer. If Android can bring enough pressure to the iPhone, I’m sure we’ll see the iPhone continue at a much faster pace than we would without a solid competitor.
Comment by David Martin — September 29, 2008 @ 10:52 pm
Some projects/applications suit open source development; some do not. It seems to me that a smart way to approach software development is to choose the right mix of open source and proprietary applications.
OS X itself and the iPhone by extension utilize all kinds of open source software in areas where the collaborative nature results in a better product, but neither abandon the development and management of an entire platform to an open source community.
You typically don’t get the fit & finish of something like OS X in open source collaboration - it is almost impossible to do with a large unmanaged team. You also don’t get hundreds of eyes and ideas working on a closed source app, which is why I believe the right mix of the two methods is the way to go.
Open source software and OS’s form the backbone that allow things like TiVo to exist - but thank God, TiVo built the front end.
Comment by John — September 30, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
Where “open” is better, frankly, is in the niches.
Fun example: Suppose I’m a runner. A “serious” runner. I run miles and miles every day. Suppose also, I’m a stats junky. I want to see heart-rate information–heck, I want a full EKG for every inch that I run.
As a “serious” runner, I would pay good money for such a thing I could install on, say, my phone alongside my music which I like to listen to when I run.
Can I do this on the iPhone? Nope. Why? (a) Apple’s device doesn’t have a heart-rate monitor, (b) Apple won’t allow me to use bluetooth to talk to an external heart-rate monitor, and (c) Apple seems to be snarky about applications that use the GPS for tracking purposes.
Can I do this on Android/Windows Mobile? Yes. Why? (a) With more device suppliers, there’s a (not very good) chance that I could find a device with a heart-rate monitor, (b) they don’t care if I use bluetooth to talk to an external heart-rate monitor, and (c) they don’t care how I use the GPS.
Advantage, Android.
But it’s not much of an advantage because there aren’t all that many “serious” runners out there. Those that are would buy this in a heartbeat (no pun intended). I might sell it to 1,000 runners! But that’s a far cry from the tens or hundreds of thousands of people who would buy, say, Cro-Mag Rally or Pocket Guitar.
So where the “open” wins out is in the number of applications which do interesting and innovative things, like my above example. I doubt you’ll have as many flashlight, koi pond, and Zippo Lighter applications on Android.
Comment by Peter — September 30, 2008 @ 2:01 pm
Peter: I would argue that many niches can function quite well in the iPhone ecosystem. The exception to that is a niche that requires a hardware API, or access to Bluetooth, the 30-pin connector, or Wifi. Android will always have the advantage in those areas, but as you said, it’s a small market segment.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — September 30, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
@Peter: Open source people tend to be technical in nature, which means that they can and do “hack” devices - whether an xBox, an AppleTV, a TiVo or an iPhone. If you are capable of writing a heart monitor program, you would be capable of “hacking” the device to run it on.
Given that open source mostly has appeal to technical types anyway, and that the average user just wants a stable well designed product, I don’t think a reasonable lockdown on what it’s possible to do to a device is a problem.
Comment by John — September 30, 2008 @ 4:01 pm
That said, a hardware SDK might do well for the iPhone, and spur the third-party market. Apple could easily do this by only allowing access to the hardware through a custom app. They then control the app distribution through the AppStore, and sandbox usage from the rest of the device.
I think that it’s only a matter of time before Apple gets there. Right now, they have other concerns with the AppStore on their hands…
Comment by Michael Mistretta — September 30, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
The lot of you Apple zealots don’t get it. This isn’t about you. This isn’t about the average consumer.
This is about the developer. As much as you and Steve Jobs may wish, developers thrive on being able to tweak things and poke all kinds of buttons, essentially. They thrive on having an open environment, and they thrive on being able to talk to other developers (regardless of whether or not they’re building open source or proprietary software).
How one defends the NDA, I don’t know. However, you don’t really seem to be saying much. You seem to agree that the more niche and innovative apps will be available on Android, and not on the iPhone… but that’s about all you’re saying. It’s not like you can’t do those things with Android. You just assume that because something is shiny that it’s inherently better, which is plain wrong. Some say that Live’s search result pages are “prettier” than Google’s. Does that make Live better than Google? No.
Obviously for the next few years, yes, there will be a whole host of different hardware configurations, which will be a pain. I do believe that soon enough that’ll sorta settle down like PCs have settled down over the past few years.
And what matters most to developers is the install base. Again, tens if not dozens of devices across multiple carriers in each country are, overall, going to sell more than one device that has two colors and two storage capacities. Unfortunately for you, with the exception of Apple fanboys like yourselves, many serious mobile developers don’t care about which OS has a prettier UI, but which OS has the higher install base — and don’t forget that Objective-C is barely in the top 35 programming languages I believe, while Java is a close second behind C and a long way away from #3.
I look forward to further debating this with Michael tonight.
Comment by Ben Feldman — September 30, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
Ben, calling names doesn’t work when you’re as much of a Linux/Google “zealot” as we are “Apple zealots.”
In case you missed it, this entire post IS entirely about the consumer. If you want to talk about the developer, listen. I’ve said it here, I’ll say it again, and so have most of the other “NDA defenders” here.
Apple is entirely wrong on the NDA, and has huge fundamental problems with the App Store.
How you’ve missed people saying this time and time again is beyond me, but it’s pretty clear that you enjoy feeling better than all the “Apple fanboys” and not having us criticize Apple works out a lot better for you.
I tweeted this last night, and it is something that apparently still needs hammering in. Just because there is criticism of an open product, doesn’t automatically make me an open source hater. Open source products are by and large phenomenal. But “open” products like Android, well.. they sound good on paper, but looking ahead they have a large potential for problems.
I’d say that the iPhone and Android experiences are fundamental opposites. On the iPhone, developer life is pretty broken, while the consumer side of things leaves very little to be desired. On the other hand, the Android leaves quite a bit to be desired for consumers, and also has the potential for tons of confusion on down the road. On the flip side, it is at this point phenomenally better for the developers.
Comment by Adam Fisher-Cox — September 30, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
Michael, I think you’re 100% right when you say that Android won’t give you the same “seamless” experience that Apple can offer. However, while you probably will be right, I think you’re basing this off previous open source projects that have tanked.
I think that if something open source gets enough steam behind it, and the right amount of contribution/editing (like Wikipedia, I guess) it can work. Take a look at Linux — namely Ubuntu, but other distros as well. It may not be a gigantic portion of the market, but a good amount of people are using it even though aside from the OS itself, not much is handed to users on a silver platter.
Google has a pretty damn good OS laid out in Android. It’s open, and it bears the Google tag. People who I never would peg as particularly tech-savvy, were telling *me* about the “Google phone” the day after it was announced. If that type of excitement and word of mouth can spread to developers, we may very well have decent competition to Apple.
And for the sake of Apple continuing to offer a great platform, and for other companies to strive to offer a similar package, we all better hope Android takes off.
Comment by Indraneel — September 30, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
Adam,
Yeah, I should have been clearer in that I wasn’t talking to those commenting specifically as much as the Apple community in general, and I apologize if I seemed like I had no clue what I was talking about.
Maybe I overlooked something, but I still don’t see where Android lacks for consumers. Again, a “non-standard” interface isn’t as much of deal breaker for consumers as it is for more technology-literate people. In fact, it’s not a deal breaker at all, as (again) look at how many people use Windows on a daily basis and have little to no reason to complain.
Also, Peter seemed to attempt to make a point that Android will only house niche applications, and not more general ones like what Pangea is putting out. I highly doubt that will be the case, as EA and others have said that they are in the process of making Android versions of their games much like they have for the iPhone.
Comment by Ben Feldman — September 30, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
It’s obviously not a deal breaker for consumers, hence why Windows is prevalent, but it is a point of confusion when interfaces and conventions suddenly switch. Not that this is something that the iPhone has really well either, with the third party apps.
The biggest shortcoming for consumers is the [99% likely] hypothetical of the different types of phones, with different inputs, and different apps with different input requirements, etc.
Comment by Adam Fisher-Cox — September 30, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
Ben’s right when he says developers look at installed base. If Android can garner enough of an installed base that has a much avid developer community than the iPhone, that puts a lot of pressure on Apple.
Again, that’s an if. Although, for the “consumer’s” sake, I hope Android goes somewhere so we can have some decent competition to the iPhone.
Just look at Nikon and Canon “one-upping” each other in the camera arena. Now thats what the iPhone needs.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — September 30, 2008 @ 5:05 pm
I think whats being missed here is that Android developers will all be super-human, geniuses who will only focus on building best of breed. No flash-light or tip calculators for them; they will strive to build the better mousetrap.
Seriously, there are a plethora of crap apps on the AppStore because a bunch of coder-wannabes have downloaded the SDK, *PAID $99* to Apple, and glued some widgets together in Interface builder, perhaps writing a few lines of code. It cost them money to release that crap…
But the Android platform won’t become inundated because, um, why exactly? Cost of entry for the wannabe will be lower, and app acceptance into distribution channels will be easier… can’t see any limits there - the wannabe is going to get his street-cred cheaper. Android may well have the unintended side-effect of *reducing* the amount of crap on the AppStore (hmmm, roll on Android, I say)
The OpenSource community has a habit of developing “free” copies of products it sees in other marketplaces. Until it comes up with something new, a killer app that the other platforms don’t (and *cant*) have, its going to be a technological curiosity. Because consumers don’t care about who did it first (see: Microsoft Windows), they care about how well it works…
Comment by Jeff — September 30, 2008 @ 6:33 pm
“Dozens of devices will overall sell more than one device with two storage levels and two colors. ”
Microsoft called and says that they have already tried that in digital media and all they got was embarrassment.
Linux called and says that they have already tried that for the desktop and all they got was a joke as market share.
Lay off the myth.
Comment by Kontra — October 1, 2008 @ 4:23 am
Kontra,
Lay off the myth? Sorry, but I’m not going to hold off on the opportunity to confront someone who’s vigorously defending DRM on their blog.
Forget about Linux for a second… Ever heard of Windows? Perhaps you conveniently forgot that Apple is nowhere near the top when it comes to manufacturing computers. Dell, HP? No? Never heard of them, either?
And, take a step back for a second — the dozens of non-iPhone smartphones overall currently sell more than the iPhone. By a *large* margin.
Let’s go back to Linux — with its “joke” market share. Internationally, Gartner says Linux has about a 4% desktop market share. In the US, I think Apple just went into the double digits, but internationally they have maybe a 4-5% market share. Right — a joke market share.
Do you truly believe DRM is good? Don’t you realize that those who care enough will crack the DRM *every time*? Remember the AACS thing? DRM just places a burden on consumers who it isn’t meant for.
Look at Spore. The people who were going to pirate it just stripped the DRM and went on with their lives while consumers are stuck with a DRM-infused game that could very well be shut off in 5-10 years.
I bet you thought the NDA was a good thing, too.
Comment by Ben Feldman — October 1, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
Don’t side step the issue: you said, “Dozens of devices will overall sell more than one device with two storage levels and two colors.”
That’s demonstrably false. That’s precisely how Microsoft tried to counter iPod/iTunes by specifically attacking Apple for being “closed” and touted their “partners,” “options” and “alternatives.” That failed miserably. So embarrassingly that MS screwed its own “partners” to abandon the fantasy of “dozens of devices” to go into business for itself. Zune DRM is not licensed to anyone, only MS does Zune — hardware and software.
Linux has been saying the very same thing for years, it’s an undeniable fact that it has not caught on on the desktop, despite all the “This is the year of Linux” nonsense. You know why? It is not good enough. Let me repeat that, it’s not good enough for the ‘average’ desktop user. DRM has nothing to do with it.
I’m absolutely NOT a DRM supporter by any stretch. I am, however, a defender of Apple in the case of the utterly stupid Norwegian move, as I explained here:
Daily question: No lutefisk for iTunes in Norway?
http://counternotions.com/2008/09/30/norway/
Comment by Kontra — October 1, 2008 @ 8:29 pm
Kontra,
You didn’t bother to respond to my point about Dell and HP. And with the exception of music downloaded as a part of Zune Pass, nearly all music in the Zune Marketplace is DRM-free.
I never said that DRM has anything to do with Linux’s journey on the desktop, but merely pointed out that before you say it has a joke of a market share, it’s important for you to recognize that overall OS X at this point doesn’t have a much higher one itself. I’ve never subscribed to the “year of the Linux desktop” theories because, yes, they’re absolute nonsense. Something outrageous would have to happen for any major shift like that to happen — and whatever happened would be small and the overall effect would take years to occur.
And I never think a country defending its citizens’ fair use rights is “utterly stupid.”
Comment by Ben Feldman — October 1, 2008 @ 8:51 pm
What’s there to be said about HP and Dell? Do they sell more than Apple? Sure. Is Dell in financial trouble? Yes. Is HP unhappy with Windows Vista to the point of creating their own OS? Yes, according to rumors.
“And I never think a country defending its citizens’ fair use rights is ‘utterly stupid.’”
This is way off-topic here, and I don’t want to hijack Michael’s excellent consideration of the issue. You’re welcome to debate the *specific* issues involved in the Norwegian case in my blog if you’d like.
Comment by Kontra — October 1, 2008 @ 9:04 pm