Quote:
Originally Posted by
djmikeo 
Tell your wife you told a little lie, or kind of. There are plenty of music players, mms and many other programs for the iPhone. And up until this week, you could not download the froyo 2.2 for your phone on the same date that it was released for others. SO you have Froyo, but did you get the whole update? or did Verizon nix a couple of features, such as wifi sharing, so you have to (according to Verizon) pay for their service. When iOS is updated, it pertains to all of their current models (within last 2 years) and is not held back by the manufacturer or the carrier. Android is great, but sadly, the updates and features are so fragmented that developers are having a hard time making one app for all, and consumers are starting for feel "feature envy" from other phones using the "same" Android operating system. If I buy an iPhone today, I don't have to worry about a new model coming out in 3 months like the Android phones. Why would I want to buy a phone that will be obsolete in just 4-6 months?
When Apple announced Tethering for their devices, it didn't launch on any ATT iphones. So yes, carriers do have some say in features, though much less control over iOS than other ones. And currently there is NO way (carrier approved or otherwise) to get wifi tethering on your phone without rooting it and installing a custom Kernal. Verizon didn't block tethering to launch a paid app, they could configure the built in tethering to require payment. They said it "doesn't support the feature." My theory is that they said so to try and drive sales of new devices. That, or they couldn't find a way to open up wifi tethering on the device without allowing free alternatives to be developed.
Android is also an OS that needs to be coded for each phone individually. So the "droid got froyo later than N1" argument really doesn't make that much sense. This isn't like a windows update where it's bloated with preloaded drivers. each built of froyo is specific for those devices.
And the average customer buys phones every 2 years, so even apples 1 phone a year path is too fast for the average customer, and yet they don't seem to care. There are some customers feeling "feature envy" but most of them don't, and a lot of them that do wouldn't feel it either without engadget and other blogs harping on it every couple of week.s (just like most customers don't have antenna issues on the iphone, but because of blog posts, everyone thought it was a huge issue) I'm not denying that device envy does exist, but the envy for android devices isn't anything new for average consumers. yes, it's faster than most former apple customers might expect, but for most customers, it's really nothing new compared to them getting an ENV3 and then the next month the Samsung Reality comes out.
