You're reading too much into it. Jobs is fine with low market share. He understands the game. You honestly think he doesn't?
As long as Apple achieves most of the profits, they really don't care what their market share is. This is perfectly achievable with the current market dynamics. If they achieve say 7-10 percent of the total phone market but 50+ percent of the so-called smartphone market, they will have 50+ of the profits in the mobile industry. If this happens, their stock will double again.
Dan makes an interesting point about how mobile vendors are rallying around Android as Symbian, WM and various incarnations of Linux are cratering under the inertia of the iPhone and Blackberry. That's a big plus for Android. But you have to remember that his point is that Android isn't like MS Windows and Google isn't like MS. What Google wants is ad revenue through their multitude of services. So Google's number 1 goal is to get as many eyeballs on Google services as they can. They are perfectly happy with WebOS, AndroidOS, iPhone OS X, WM, Symbian, Maemo, LiMo, whatever dominating the market as long as they use Google services.
Since hardware vendors will try to create their own brands when using Android (Google, Moto, HTC, Samsung, SE, LG will all have they own UI layer and branding) with their own versions of hardware and Android software. This will create fiefdoms, not unification.
In this type of environment, Apple can win the majority of customers and profits. The fact that Google will allow such customization will fracture the app development market. The specs on the Moto DROID are cool and all, but many if not a large majority of apps will look like crap on the DROID's 16:9 854x480 screen when all Android apps are currently designed for 3:2 480x320 screens. It will only get worse as more and more vendors use different spec hardware.
This will also create an environment where abandoning Android will be very easy. There isn't anything driving vendor lock-in in the mobile market. Not any that I can see. There isn't a killer app that has lock-in data and data formats. There isn't a killer market that locks in a consumer.
Apple and Google definitely are dancing about this. Their business models don't directly compete (Google sells advertising, Apple sells hardware), but there is a bit overlap and they'll be doing the frenemy dance for awhile.
I am interested in seeing if the likes of Nokia, MS, Yahoo, Amazon, GPS vendors, and others respond to Google. Are they going to band together and oppose Google's core business by providing an advertising business themselves? Nokia and MS are getting closer together. Nokia using MS services would be amazing competition for Google, assuming Nokia abandons their own services ambitions. Nokia and MS collaborate at that level, it will be much easier for Samsung, SE, and LG to be folded in.
Apple will always beat to their own drum.
Apple milked it for as long as they could.
Their current desktop offerings are a much greater bargain for what the specs offer. But it's still not good enough in this economy.
Apple had a Crown Jewel with the iPhone. They blew it away (or will) with the closed approach they continue to take.
Google is the MS of the 90s and their intents are to take over the entire tech market.
Is that a good thing for one company. No. But they planned it all out and it's inevitable at this point.
You're a long-suffering Linux user that's finally getting some satisfaction, even if it's just really in the mobile sphere.
We're happy for you.
Carry on.
I'm not happy for him. He's living in ignorance and that's dangerous! :kidding:
Um, it hasn't happened in the mobile sphere yet. We're just being enveloped by the marketing hype right now. It could very easily turn into a nightmare next year when sales of Android phone turn out to be underwhelming and the carriers and phone vendors turn to the next big thing like Symbian^x or Windows 7 "phone" or whatever. Or it'll be funny to see the gnashing of teeth when Verizon runs a really closed shop on it's DROID business.
Google is like MS in one respect. They've got the money to keep trying just like MS. They've must have burnt 500m on Android already and probably haven't seen anything even close to a ROI yet.
All the web browsers are adding support for HTML5, including IE, though less quickly as others. Most of the others are adding support quickly. If you look at mobile market and what browsers are being used the most you see that mobileSafari is king. Android Browser will be the 2nd most used within a year and should jump to #1, but that will be the two most prolific and internet friendly mobileBrowsers using WebKit. Then you have WebOS, BlackberryOS and others using WebKit.
This history is actually interesting. The Mozilla folks must be burning or something now.
The Apple funded WebKit team is winning while the Google funded Mozilla team is losing. The Firefox developers have to be pissed with Google choosing Webkit for Chrome, Android and like ChromeOS. They must have thought Google was on Firefox's side with all of the money Google is giving them, but then Google goes on and uses a competing technology. Morale must not be good right now.
But it is probably a naive thought. It would be interesting to hear what they think though.
A future where different versions on different phones with different features completely confuses the common consumer? Which versions of which Android implementation is a particular App written for? Some phones use one UI, some another, some a bland vanilla version of Android.. One bad implementation of Android combined with a draconian cancellation fee could sour an entire group to Android. You might expect a consumer to not cast such general aspersions on an entire platform, but if the pain was significant enough, most will just associate 'Android' with 'bad experience'.
The confusion has already started with Android 2.0, 1.6, 1.5 all being on the market at the same time (beginning tomorrow). No one seems to know if any of the Android phones before Droid, will actually be upgraded to 2.0. Google says all vendors are free to upgrade once it is released. Vendors such as HTC who wrote their own UI on top, aren't willing to say if they will or won't, and if they will, by when.
This history is actually interesting. The Mozilla folks must be burning or something now.
The Apple funded WebKit team is winning while the Google funded Mozilla team is losing. The Firefox developers have to be pissed with Google choosing Webkit for Chrome, Android and like ChromeOS. They must have thought Google was on Firefox's side with all of the money Google is giving them, but then Google goes on and uses a competing technology. Morale must not be good right now.
But it is probably a naive thought. It would be interesting to hear what they think though.
I can see that, but they were Google?s customer in a way. They can?t really pull Google from the search engine. People will use it anyway and then Mozilla will get nothing. Apple is also getting paid for Safari and mobileSafari.
Firefox is great, but the WebKit engine clearly trumps Gecko. Same goes for their respective JS engines. To make matter worse, Mozilla seems to have been acught completely off guard with the mobile sector.
Fennec (mobileFirefox), is finally on a Nokia product (or more?) with Maemo, but without getting it on as many devices as possible it?s not going to help Nokia of Mozilla. I think they?ve lost the mobile front and I?m surprised they didn?t get Fennec ready for Android sooner. It?s the only the place they likely have a chance to get some real browser market share.
I though Mozilla was smarter than that. They could always adopt WebKit in the future and still have the Firefox browser, but I don?t see that happening as much as I see MS doing that.
It's not the 90's anymore and Apple is still operating under the same tactics.
Google could care less about Microsoft, Apple or Palm for that matter.
All closed OS's that are the past. Give developers 100's of devices to develop for and the future is written all over again.
Edit.
It worked great for MS on the desktop. Google, unlike MS has been planning this for years & has every platform covered. Where is the future?
It's in your toaster, phone, TV, name it and Google has planned for all of them.
Developing for 1 platfrom or every platform. As a devoper what would you program for?
Well for one thing Google does care about Apple. When Google is the default search engine for Safari, and mobile Safari, who makes money? Google. Who makes money on the maps app? Google. YouTube? Google.
I guess by closed OS's you mean Windows as well. This argument was made years ago when Linux fans said the exact same thing. Unfortunately, Adobe, and other developers didn't like the wording of "Open" or "Open Source" due to they were worried that their copywrited works would be reverse engineered and have no legal recourse. Sure, giving developers more freedom is great, but not to the extent where they can steal others hard work and not get paid. Kinda like Psystar.
Well as history has proved, there is no platform that EVERYBODY will develop for. Some develop for money, some as a hobby. As a developer I would program for the platform that I am most comfortable with. Trust me, there are developers that would like to go multi-platform, but don't have the skills nor the time to do it. Bungie, for one wanted to make Halo for Mac and PC, was approached my MS to do a platform version. Bungie passed, then MS gave them a boatload of cash and then bingo they owned them. How many Google apps are only on the Google app store and not anywhere else? Just like there are a ton of apps on the Applestore that started out on OTHER PLATFORMS.
Open VS Closed. Open wins and that is why I've moved a large portion of my portfolio to Google. I'm young enough to wait for the return.
People keep saying this as if it will come true if they keep repeating it. Where's the proof of this happening in multiple industries and multiple scenarios?
If you really think that then you know nothing of Google's partnerships with their vendors.
You may say the same thing for the early Window's users but Google has covered it's basis by clearly defining what each phone based on specs can use what features of Androids features.
Google is Microsoft of the new centurey but they have a much broader partnership a (strangle hold some might say) on how the market develops.
It's not just phones. It's OS's, PMP, TV boxes, TV's, Tablets, EBook developers.
While Steve was sitting on his pile of cash Google was very busy coverying all basis of every sector of your life.
It's a failed business plan! Google may not be as incompetent as MS, but 'partnerships' regarding computers and OSes produce fail in abundance. Each phone is different and produces a different user experience. I'm not saying Android can't gain mindshare, but the 'control' issues that raise such ire in you regarding Apple are also largely part of what creates such good 'quality control'. Incremental increases in possible utility will not overcome the insufficient quality control that is caused by having 'too many cooks in the soup'.
Apple creates elegant, easy to use, and moderately powerful solutions to problems that people oftentimes don't even realize they have. Android has still not shown that it can compete with that. While Google is still trying to figure out how to build a better iPhone, Apple is trying to create 'the next, next great thing'.
The confusion has already started with Android 2.0, 1.6, 1.5 all being on the market at the same time (beginning tomorrow). No one seems to know if any of the Android phones before Droid, will actually be upgraded to 2.0. Google says all vendors are free to upgrade once it is released. Vendors such as HTC who wrote their own UI on top, aren't willing to say if they will or won't, and if they will, by when.
Confusion to who? It's only use techheads who can tell the difference between the actual OS versions. To the average person buying an Android phone, they can't tell if it's running 2.0 or 1.6 or 1.5. Especially if the manufacturer puts a custom GUI on it.
To them, all the basic functions work the same and all the apps work the same. What's there to be confused about?
Motorola had better offer something revolutionary right out of the gate. And I don't mean a free GPS app, better camera, and a browser that doesn't do multitouch. It needs to redefine the game or no one outside tech forums and Android's developers will care.
Good point. We can debate these things all day and night long. But the consumer dictates word on the street in the phone space, and word on the street is all iphone. MS managed to market their way to world dominance with Windows on the desktop. But the iphone is a game changing product marketing itself so, without the bluff and bluster of the Windows desktop era.
Forums and developers can rant and rave all they like for and against a platform or device, but it is the people parting with their hard earned cash that define market share in the phone space. And so it should be. Keeps everyone on their toes.
Users accept Windows and MS Office on the desktop as the norm, because they are unaware or don't care about superior options available (or free ones like Linux, Open Office, etc). But the phone space is a new battleground and the rules are not the same. Otherwise everyone would have just accepted our Windows Mobile overlords and bowed down before them. Good luck to Android, and good luck to Apple. Two 21st century companies, giving consumers and users what they want.
This history is actually interesting. The Mozilla folks must be burning or something now.
The Apple funded WebKit team is winning while the Google funded Mozilla team is losing. The Firefox developers have to be pissed with Google choosing Webkit for Chrome, Android and like ChromeOS. They must have thought Google was on Firefox's side with all of the money Google is giving them, but then Google goes on and uses a competing technology. Morale must not be good right now.
But it is probably a naive thought. It would be interesting to hear what they think though.
Google will keep supporting Mozilla. Google just wants to flood the market with alternatives to Internet Explorer, its only real competition for its core search business. every point of market share IE loses to any other browser, Google picks up most of that search business.
likewise Android is aimed dead-on at Win Mo. taking the OEM's away from MS is exactly what it is designed perfectly to do. same with all the Google cloud services. Nokia, RIM, and Apple make their own phones and have their own solid market niche, so they are not the target.
Google, not Apple, is the MS Slayer of ... the Future!
People keep saying this as if it will come true if they keep repeating it. Where's the proof of this happening in multiple industries and multiple scenarios?
There is lots of proof of open source actually working, unfortunately for CloudFuture it?s all packaged in real business models, not idealist good v. evil dreamscapes. For instance BSD, Darwin, WebKit, and a couple others.
Confusion to who? It's only use techheads who can tell the difference between the actual OS versions. To the average person buying an Android phone, they can't tell if it's running 2.0 or 1.6 or 1.5. Especially if the manufacturer puts a custom GUI on it.
To them, all the basic functions work the same and all the apps work the same. What's there to be confused about?
Not when they start wondering why they can't have the turn-by-turn Navigation app that is for Android phones. Or why my Droid using 2.0 doesn't have pinch-to-zoom but his Droid Eris using 1.5 does.
This is an interesting article and there's some interesting points of view here.
Before I get absolutely flamed for my post, I'm a recent switcher to the Mac - I have a MacBook Pro and absolutely love it I should have bought a Mac years ago.
As a software developer who's been in the industry for 15 years though, I find the closed-ness of the iPhone as a development platform rather off putting. I've invested the last 11 years of my career to developing enterprise systems with Java. To develop apps for the iPhone I have to learn Objective-C. Hmm. Well I did some development with C back in 1996, but I'm not planning on spending any effort into learning Objective-C right now. Sorry to say guys, but the world has moved on, and the future of software development is not C or C++. Ok, so it's not Java either - Java is in it's prime right now, but there's going to be 'the next big thing' come along to replace it any time now.
Secondly, I'm not going to invest tens of hours developing an app for the iPhone to have it reviewed by Apple and possibly rejected as not suitable for the Store. This is not my day job (if it was then I wouldn't have any issues) - I write software as a hobby outside of my day job. I'm not going to invest the time and effort developing an iPhone app to have it possibly rejected and waste my time.
Google made an incredibly sensible decision to base their development language for the Android platform on Java. Think about it. The software industry right now is full of Java developers. Computer Science degree courses use Java as their teaching language.
I've started writing apps for Android... because I can. It was incredibly easy to pick up the Android platform specific APIs and there's still plenty of the core Java APIs being leveraged by the platform. Plus, when I uploaded my apps to the Android market, they were available to download from my Android phone instantly.
I could go on, but I'd be selling the benefits of the Android platform over the iPhone platform, which is another topic
Comments
So HOW did this article omit Web OS and Windows Mobile?
Because they are not important at this time. Maybe next year.
Open VS Closed. Open wins
A FOSS-nick.
I might have guessed. Ok, now I understand.
You're a long-suffering Linux user that's finally getting some satisfaction, even if it's just really in the mobile sphere.
We're happy for you.
Carry on.
You're reading too much into it. Jobs is fine with low market share. He understands the game. You honestly think he doesn't?
As long as Apple achieves most of the profits, they really don't care what their market share is. This is perfectly achievable with the current market dynamics. If they achieve say 7-10 percent of the total phone market but 50+ percent of the so-called smartphone market, they will have 50+ of the profits in the mobile industry. If this happens, their stock will double again.
Dan makes an interesting point about how mobile vendors are rallying around Android as Symbian, WM and various incarnations of Linux are cratering under the inertia of the iPhone and Blackberry. That's a big plus for Android. But you have to remember that his point is that Android isn't like MS Windows and Google isn't like MS. What Google wants is ad revenue through their multitude of services. So Google's number 1 goal is to get as many eyeballs on Google services as they can. They are perfectly happy with WebOS, AndroidOS, iPhone OS X, WM, Symbian, Maemo, LiMo, whatever dominating the market as long as they use Google services.
Since hardware vendors will try to create their own brands when using Android (Google, Moto, HTC, Samsung, SE, LG will all have they own UI layer and branding) with their own versions of hardware and Android software. This will create fiefdoms, not unification.
In this type of environment, Apple can win the majority of customers and profits. The fact that Google will allow such customization will fracture the app development market. The specs on the Moto DROID are cool and all, but many if not a large majority of apps will look like crap on the DROID's 16:9 854x480 screen when all Android apps are currently designed for 3:2 480x320 screens. It will only get worse as more and more vendors use different spec hardware.
This will also create an environment where abandoning Android will be very easy. There isn't anything driving vendor lock-in in the mobile market. Not any that I can see. There isn't a killer app that has lock-in data and data formats. There isn't a killer market that locks in a consumer.
Apple and Google definitely are dancing about this. Their business models don't directly compete (Google sells advertising, Apple sells hardware), but there is a bit overlap and they'll be doing the frenemy dance for awhile.
I am interested in seeing if the likes of Nokia, MS, Yahoo, Amazon, GPS vendors, and others respond to Google. Are they going to band together and oppose Google's core business by providing an advertising business themselves? Nokia and MS are getting closer together. Nokia using MS services would be amazing competition for Google, assuming Nokia abandons their own services ambitions. Nokia and MS collaborate at that level, it will be much easier for Samsung, SE, and LG to be folded in.
Apple will always beat to their own drum.
Apple milked it for as long as they could.
Their current desktop offerings are a much greater bargain for what the specs offer. But it's still not good enough in this economy.
Apple had a Crown Jewel with the iPhone. They blew it away (or will) with the closed approach they continue to take.
Google is the MS of the 90s and their intents are to take over the entire tech market.
Is that a good thing for one company. No. But they planned it all out and it's inevitable at this point.
Because they are not important at this time. Maybe next year.
By this next year, they may not even be a consideration at all.
You're a long-suffering Linux user that's finally getting some satisfaction, even if it's just really in the mobile sphere.
And he’ll get some satisfaction next year with ChromeOS, though it’s gonna have a webcode UI so it’s not it’s gonna be a big gain.
A FOSS-nick.
I might have guessed. Ok, now I understand.
You're a long-suffering Linux user that's finally getting some satisfaction, even if it's just really in the mobile sphere.
We're happy for you.
Carry on.
I'm not happy for him. He's living in ignorance and that's dangerous! :kidding:
Um, it hasn't happened in the mobile sphere yet. We're just being enveloped by the marketing hype right now. It could very easily turn into a nightmare next year when sales of Android phone turn out to be underwhelming and the carriers and phone vendors turn to the next big thing like Symbian^x or Windows 7 "phone" or whatever. Or it'll be funny to see the gnashing of teeth when Verizon runs a really closed shop on it's DROID business.
Google is like MS in one respect. They've got the money to keep trying just like MS. They've must have burnt 500m on Android already and probably haven't seen anything even close to a ROI yet.
Um, it hasn't happened in the mobile sphere yet. We're just being enveloped by the marketing hype right now.
Are we including phones with Embedded Linux?
All the web browsers are adding support for HTML5, including IE, though less quickly as others. Most of the others are adding support quickly. If you look at mobile market and what browsers are being used the most you see that mobileSafari is king. Android Browser will be the 2nd most used within a year and should jump to #1, but that will be the two most prolific and internet friendly mobileBrowsers using WebKit. Then you have WebOS, BlackberryOS and others using WebKit.
This history is actually interesting. The Mozilla folks must be burning or something now.
The Apple funded WebKit team is winning while the Google funded Mozilla team is losing. The Firefox developers have to be pissed with Google choosing Webkit for Chrome, Android and like ChromeOS. They must have thought Google was on Firefox's side with all of the money Google is giving them, but then Google goes on and uses a competing technology. Morale must not be good right now.
But it is probably a naive thought. It would be interesting to hear what they think though.
Are we including phones with Embedded Linux?
Have all the variations dented the mobile market, especially in the platform way we are talking about?
Actually, from the list, I'm surprised there aren't more Chinese oriented Linux vendors on it.
A future where different versions on different phones with different features completely confuses the common consumer? Which versions of which Android implementation is a particular App written for? Some phones use one UI, some another, some a bland vanilla version of Android.. One bad implementation of Android combined with a draconian cancellation fee could sour an entire group to Android. You might expect a consumer to not cast such general aspersions on an entire platform, but if the pain was significant enough, most will just associate 'Android' with 'bad experience'.
The confusion has already started with Android 2.0, 1.6, 1.5 all being on the market at the same time (beginning tomorrow). No one seems to know if any of the Android phones before Droid, will actually be upgraded to 2.0. Google says all vendors are free to upgrade once it is released. Vendors such as HTC who wrote their own UI on top, aren't willing to say if they will or won't, and if they will, by when.
This history is actually interesting. The Mozilla folks must be burning or something now.
The Apple funded WebKit team is winning while the Google funded Mozilla team is losing. The Firefox developers have to be pissed with Google choosing Webkit for Chrome, Android and like ChromeOS. They must have thought Google was on Firefox's side with all of the money Google is giving them, but then Google goes on and uses a competing technology. Morale must not be good right now.
But it is probably a naive thought. It would be interesting to hear what they think though.
I can see that, but they were Google?s customer in a way. They can?t really pull Google from the search engine. People will use it anyway and then Mozilla will get nothing. Apple is also getting paid for Safari and mobileSafari.
Firefox is great, but the WebKit engine clearly trumps Gecko. Same goes for their respective JS engines. To make matter worse, Mozilla seems to have been acught completely off guard with the mobile sector.
Fennec (mobileFirefox), is finally on a Nokia product (or more?) with Maemo, but without getting it on as many devices as possible it?s not going to help Nokia of Mozilla. I think they?ve lost the mobile front and I?m surprised they didn?t get Fennec ready for Android sooner. It?s the only the place they likely have a chance to get some real browser market share.
I though Mozilla was smarter than that. They could always adopt WebKit in the future and still have the Firefox browser, but I don?t see that happening as much as I see MS doing that.
It's not the 90's anymore and Apple is still operating under the same tactics.
Google could care less about Microsoft, Apple or Palm for that matter.
All closed OS's that are the past. Give developers 100's of devices to develop for and the future is written all over again.
Edit.
It worked great for MS on the desktop. Google, unlike MS has been planning this for years & has every platform covered. Where is the future?
It's in your toaster, phone, TV, name it and Google has planned for all of them.
Developing for 1 platfrom or every platform. As a devoper what would you program for?
Well for one thing Google does care about Apple. When Google is the default search engine for Safari, and mobile Safari, who makes money? Google. Who makes money on the maps app? Google. YouTube? Google.
I guess by closed OS's you mean Windows as well. This argument was made years ago when Linux fans said the exact same thing. Unfortunately, Adobe, and other developers didn't like the wording of "Open" or "Open Source" due to they were worried that their copywrited works would be reverse engineered and have no legal recourse. Sure, giving developers more freedom is great, but not to the extent where they can steal others hard work and not get paid. Kinda like Psystar.
Well as history has proved, there is no platform that EVERYBODY will develop for. Some develop for money, some as a hobby. As a developer I would program for the platform that I am most comfortable with. Trust me, there are developers that would like to go multi-platform, but don't have the skills nor the time to do it. Bungie, for one wanted to make Halo for Mac and PC, was approached my MS to do a platform version. Bungie passed, then MS gave them a boatload of cash and then bingo they owned them. How many Google apps are only on the Google app store and not anywhere else? Just like there are a ton of apps on the Applestore that started out on OTHER PLATFORMS.
The future is the same as it ever was, unclear.
The subject Title is comparing the iPhone to Android. It can't be called trolling if you're giving your opinion.
Steve made a ton of money for people paying way too much for being elite and letting Steve Jobs tell them what they want.
Google is making a ton of money by just giving the consumers what they have asked for.
The Future.
are you drunk?
Open VS Closed. Open wins and that is why I've moved a large portion of my portfolio to Google. I'm young enough to wait for the return.
People keep saying this as if it will come true if they keep repeating it. Where's the proof of this happening in multiple industries and multiple scenarios?
Good luck on your investment.
If you really think that then you know nothing of Google's partnerships with their vendors.
You may say the same thing for the early Window's users but Google has covered it's basis by clearly defining what each phone based on specs can use what features of Androids features.
Google is Microsoft of the new centurey but they have a much broader partnership a (strangle hold some might say) on how the market develops.
It's not just phones. It's OS's, PMP, TV boxes, TV's, Tablets, EBook developers.
While Steve was sitting on his pile of cash Google was very busy coverying all basis of every sector of your life.
It's a failed business plan! Google may not be as incompetent as MS, but 'partnerships' regarding computers and OSes produce fail in abundance. Each phone is different and produces a different user experience. I'm not saying Android can't gain mindshare, but the 'control' issues that raise such ire in you regarding Apple are also largely part of what creates such good 'quality control'. Incremental increases in possible utility will not overcome the insufficient quality control that is caused by having 'too many cooks in the soup'.
Apple creates elegant, easy to use, and moderately powerful solutions to problems that people oftentimes don't even realize they have. Android has still not shown that it can compete with that. While Google is still trying to figure out how to build a better iPhone, Apple is trying to create 'the next, next great thing'.
The confusion has already started with Android 2.0, 1.6, 1.5 all being on the market at the same time (beginning tomorrow). No one seems to know if any of the Android phones before Droid, will actually be upgraded to 2.0. Google says all vendors are free to upgrade once it is released. Vendors such as HTC who wrote their own UI on top, aren't willing to say if they will or won't, and if they will, by when.
Confusion to who? It's only use techheads who can tell the difference between the actual OS versions. To the average person buying an Android phone, they can't tell if it's running 2.0 or 1.6 or 1.5. Especially if the manufacturer puts a custom GUI on it.
To them, all the basic functions work the same and all the apps work the same. What's there to be confused about?
Now CloudedFuture would never agree with that!
Motorola had better offer something revolutionary right out of the gate. And I don't mean a free GPS app, better camera, and a browser that doesn't do multitouch. It needs to redefine the game or no one outside tech forums and Android's developers will care.
Good point. We can debate these things all day and night long. But the consumer dictates word on the street in the phone space, and word on the street is all iphone. MS managed to market their way to world dominance with Windows on the desktop. But the iphone is a game changing product marketing itself so, without the bluff and bluster of the Windows desktop era.
Forums and developers can rant and rave all they like for and against a platform or device, but it is the people parting with their hard earned cash that define market share in the phone space. And so it should be. Keeps everyone on their toes.
Users accept Windows and MS Office on the desktop as the norm, because they are unaware or don't care about superior options available (or free ones like Linux, Open Office, etc). But the phone space is a new battleground and the rules are not the same. Otherwise everyone would have just accepted our Windows Mobile overlords and bowed down before them. Good luck to Android, and good luck to Apple. Two 21st century companies, giving consumers and users what they want.
This history is actually interesting. The Mozilla folks must be burning or something now.
The Apple funded WebKit team is winning while the Google funded Mozilla team is losing. The Firefox developers have to be pissed with Google choosing Webkit for Chrome, Android and like ChromeOS. They must have thought Google was on Firefox's side with all of the money Google is giving them, but then Google goes on and uses a competing technology. Morale must not be good right now.
But it is probably a naive thought. It would be interesting to hear what they think though.
Google will keep supporting Mozilla. Google just wants to flood the market with alternatives to Internet Explorer, its only real competition for its core search business. every point of market share IE loses to any other browser, Google picks up most of that search business.
likewise Android is aimed dead-on at Win Mo. taking the OEM's away from MS is exactly what it is designed perfectly to do. same with all the Google cloud services. Nokia, RIM, and Apple make their own phones and have their own solid market niche, so they are not the target.
Google, not Apple, is the MS Slayer of ... the Future!
People keep saying this as if it will come true if they keep repeating it. Where's the proof of this happening in multiple industries and multiple scenarios?
There is lots of proof of open source actually working, unfortunately for CloudFuture it?s all packaged in real business models, not idealist good v. evil dreamscapes. For instance BSD, Darwin, WebKit, and a couple others.
Confusion to who? It's only use techheads who can tell the difference between the actual OS versions. To the average person buying an Android phone, they can't tell if it's running 2.0 or 1.6 or 1.5. Especially if the manufacturer puts a custom GUI on it.
To them, all the basic functions work the same and all the apps work the same. What's there to be confused about?
Not when they start wondering why they can't have the turn-by-turn Navigation app that is for Android phones. Or why my Droid using 2.0 doesn't have pinch-to-zoom but his Droid Eris using 1.5 does.
Before I get absolutely flamed for my post, I'm a recent switcher to the Mac - I have a MacBook Pro and absolutely love it
As a software developer who's been in the industry for 15 years though, I find the closed-ness of the iPhone as a development platform rather off putting. I've invested the last 11 years of my career to developing enterprise systems with Java. To develop apps for the iPhone I have to learn Objective-C. Hmm. Well I did some development with C back in 1996, but I'm not planning on spending any effort into learning Objective-C right now. Sorry to say guys, but the world has moved on, and the future of software development is not C or C++. Ok, so it's not Java either - Java is in it's prime right now, but there's going to be 'the next big thing' come along to replace it any time now.
Secondly, I'm not going to invest tens of hours developing an app for the iPhone to have it reviewed by Apple and possibly rejected as not suitable for the Store. This is not my day job (if it was then I wouldn't have any issues) - I write software as a hobby outside of my day job. I'm not going to invest the time and effort developing an iPhone app to have it possibly rejected and waste my time.
Google made an incredibly sensible decision to base their development language for the Android platform on Java. Think about it. The software industry right now is full of Java developers. Computer Science degree courses use Java as their teaching language.
I've started writing apps for Android... because I can. It was incredibly easy to pick up the Android platform specific APIs and there's still plenty of the core Java APIs being leveraged by the platform. Plus, when I uploaded my apps to the Android market, they were available to download from my Android phone instantly.
I could go on, but I'd be selling the benefits of the Android platform over the iPhone platform, which is another topic
Ok, I'm ready for my flaming now - bring it on