For me, and many others, apple gained great growth from "a free song". There was perhaps a year - or so (I don't remember exactly how long) where they gave away a free song on what seemed to be just about every Coke soda. I swear I gave friends a few hundred free songs. I was a strict PC person building my own stuff and hated Apple. Then I actually thought about how many songs I had given away and decided to keep my own bottle caps. Since then I have gone through two iPod classics (which weren't classic at the time), several minis, two iPod touches (refuse to buy the latest because it has the same storage capacity). Oh and I bought a mac mini just for my songs and media.
Then when Steve actually decided (or re-iterated) that they were a "mobile devices company" things started to take off. The new iPad was born.
Now, as i was buying the nano's and classics, the Zune came out. Actually there was tough competition for apple from the start with MP3 players that ranged from $5 to $200... anyway, every time I got a new iPod I was looking at a 3 year old version of the competitors offering. I don't think I've ever seen a Zune2. Maybe there is one... Steve said the reason why they got so far is because they don't rest on their laurels. He's right. That's the whole reason why their products are doing so well. I can go to the store and see 10 models that will disappear next year, or buy a new iPod. Really... is there an actual choice if you have some intelligence what so ever?
In the iPhone it's close, but you have to add in subsidation. Everyone I know "wants" an iPhone. Some simply can't afford it or the plan, so they get 'knock offs'. I don't have one, by-the-way, my company supplies Blackberries.
The iPad and slates in general will fall prey to the same tactic. Apple will always have the newest, better developed product just like in the MP3 share war. I don't think we can even count Android (which is software) in this market. As many here have noted, the next version of iPad will be available when the competitions "iPad" look alike comes to market. They can only research and develop so much before they have to call it quits.
I have to take back what I said about there being a performance hit with the ads appearing. They must have fixed this in an update or something.
I did notice a small performance lack with the new 4.2.1 iOS. However, some apps actually ran better. I did notice that "folders" seems like it 'takes a moment' before it opens. Small things really, after playing with an iPad for 7 months or so.
Good article Daniel, I also enjoy reading them in RDM.
I want to write about the UI, there is a right way and a wrong way to design screens, as well as the underlying programs that control them. I am a programmer, and I can assure you that the majority of screen designs that I have come across have bordered from the inept, lazy, pathetic to the criminal. Sometimes it feels that the programmer has simply thrown as many fields onto the screen to capture/display data to/from the database, no concept of design what so ever.
This is common in the IT industry, I can give many more examples.
Web site design is another that seems to have been hijacked by non-technical people, and the end result is chaos. I find most web sites rubbish, even Apple's is not that good, although better than many others in similar line of business.
I had a disagreement with a techie, he was of the opinion that what the user wants the user gets, I was of the opinion that the user doesn't know what he wants, because he/she does not understand the fundamentals of good screen design, period. I have worked at many client sites where I gave them what they I wanted and not what they wanted, in the end they were most happy and were amazed that they could get these features, they were simply unaware they existed.
I program on mainframes, but the concept is no different than on PCs, one site had no idea that function keys could be deployed, help available at the screen or field level, browse-select functionality was something they needed, pop-up selectable data from a list. yes all can be incorporated in mainframe applications, as long as the programmer is passionate and wants to give the best experience to the users.
I agree with Apple's approach to UI design, give users what Apple deems, it just makes sense, Apple are the experts, do you think most consumers have programming/design skills, no they don't. Now we get to the nitty gritty, Android approach is the opposite, give them the option to change the UI experience. I disagree on this approach, although its not a direct correlation in what I mentioned above, there is this fundamental approach taken by Android sellers that run counter to my philosophical approach to UI.
I find Apple's UI experiences on the whole to be enjoyable, there is room for improvements, but at least Apple has the correct principles in place and can build on them.
Each time I visit various techie sites, there seems to be a new phone or tablet displayed, "buy me, buy me ! I have x,y & z, the iPad doesn't, so I must be better, please buy me", hang on why won't you buy me ? What's wrong with me"?"
The fragmentation of the Android market place is going to grow exponentially, how can the typical non-techie consumer possibly keep up ? Will they simply trust the handset maker, when they tell them its the best phone/tablet available?"
Its a scary place, I am a techie, but I'm scared, I would rather be in the Apple world, at least I know what I am getting now, and will get in the future.
I've posted on other boards as well about this subject and will post here as well. There was an article on Asymco about the lack of any common DRM framework on Android. The article also brought up the prospect of the Android fragmentation not only being impossible to rein in but that it may actually be by design.
From Netflix blog:
The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android. The same security issues that have led to piracy concerns on the Android platform have made it difficult for us to secure a common Digital Rights Management (DRM) system on these devices.
Setting aside the debate around the value of content protection and DRM, they are requirements we must fulfill in order to obtain content from major studios for our subscribers to enjoy. Although we don?t have a common platform security mechanism and DRM, we are able to work with individual handset manufacturers to add content protection to their devices.
Unfortunately, this is a much slower approach and leads to a fragmented experience on Android, in which some handsets will have access to Netflix and others won?t.
Also from Asymco:
Recently Google TV was blocked from all major US TV content and Google faced litigation from copyright holders in print publications and before that for YouTube infringements and before that from newspaper publishers for Google News? unlicensed reuse of their content.
I agree that Google seems to have no intent to control the very ecosystem/platform they've unleashed. It's as though Google wants a chaotic free-for-all on the Internet space. What they don't want is a large sliver of that space being controlled by the likes of Apple, Microsoft or anyone else for that matter. Google doesn't want control. Google only wants the "free" space on which they can sell ads and the more "open" and "freer" it is, the more advantageous their position. Google's very goal is to break down the proprietary control of "competing" ecosystems and content owners.
Google's business model and its strategy to execute on that model is indeed a major threat to all traditional tech and media content companies that own IP and copyrighted material - from software companies to TV/movie studios, etc. Google is leveraging the very power of the Internet, which is owned by no one. It is actually a very well thought-out strategy of profiting from the chaos and fragmentation that they hope will overwhelm the efforts of "closed" or integrated ecosystem players like Apple, Microsoft, Nokia or anyone else - even the likes of major backend players like IBM, HP, Oracle, SAP, etc.
Meanwhile, Google's hardware partners (the Android phone/tablet/TV vendors) who don't have the means to take on the integrated players with their own software ecosystem/platform offerings are getting more and more deeply entangled in Google's sticky and ever expanding web as mere commodity providers from which they have no means to escape. They're essentially pawns who do the dirty work of undercutting Google's chief platform adversaries and then getting virtually nothing in return. Ditto for the software developers on the Google platform...
Google's aim is to commoditize the entire Internet infrastructure on which they can profit from through their search monopoly. Taking a page or two from Microsoft's playbook which Gates used so effectively during the 80's and the 90's to dominate the PC industry, Google is using its search monopoly position to render all other proprietary players irrelevant through their use of "open" source software and the marketing of "free" services as search, YouTube, Picasa, Gmail, Google Docs, Maps, etc. How can consumers argue against "free" stuff?
Another interesting article from the Harvard Business Review about why Google is losing this battle with this strategy:
"Android is powerful, but as Google is finding out, power can be very dangerous without control."
All those "free" things like what Google has put out, e.g. Docs, Maps, aren't really free. It just feels that way because the end user doesn't have to put out any money. All of those are basically advertising-funded. Google distributes users' search habits to advertisers so that the advertisers can target their ads to you.
At some point, the truth will catch up with all the Android folks (and their fans): Nobody, except for service providers (i.e., not Google, not the handset manufacturers, not the developers, not retailers), is making a whole heck of a lot of money off this platform.
When they finally realize it, the platform will end up in the dustbin (or at best, with the lower-end users).
Note: I am not saying that 'Apple Is It,' as much as Android Isn't It.
I don't know about the breakdowns but I know for sure that Google definitely has high profit margins, significantly higher than those of the Android manufacturers. This is to be expected. It's similar to what's happening in the PC ecosystem. Microsoft has the high profit margins but the manufacturers have no more than a razor-thin margin. By using Windows, manufacturers are robbed of the ability to innovate and differentiate their products. Pretty much the only avenue for product differentiation is on price. That's why PCs are so much cheaper than Macs. There are so many devices out there that aren't that much different. PCs have been been reduced to almost a commodity. Neither Microsoft nor the manufacturers can establish a brand.
The margins for Samsung and other Android manufacturers are not even in double digits, and some are in the negatives. Carriers are handing out Android phones like candy. However, at least with Android, since it's open-source, manufacturers actually have some avenues to differentiate their products, but still, the main point is price. The results is that Google has the high margins while the manufactures are relegated to Foxconn clones, making no more than broken pennies on the dollar.
Prior to the release of the iPod with video, Jobs disparaged watching video on a handheld device.
Prior to the release of the iPad and iBooks, Jobs disparaged reading in general, saying nobody reads anymore.
Prior to the release of AppleTV, Jobs had made many comments about Apple not getting into TV as it's a passive activity that Apple wasn't interested in.
Ever get the feeling that his public comments may be a way to throw the competition off Apple's tracks?
Completely overblown statements made by people who obviously favor the iPhone.
There isn't even a paid version of the game for Android, and the only thing that affects performance is the stupid ads! Literally, in airplane mode, the game is as smooth as silk. Turn 3g on, get ads, and watch the game's framerates drop immensely.
And the reason there isn't a paid version...? Because, as the developer has explained, it's too hard to get the full version with all features to work well enough on enough Android phones to justify charging for it. Thus, Android users get the "lite" version subsidized by ads.
This is a circular argument, i.e., a completely overblown statement by someone who obviously favors Android.
FWIW, I own both an iPhone and an Android phone, so my preference comes from my experience with both, not an irrational bias. My nearly-3-year-old iPhone 3G running the most up-to-date version of iOS blows my 1-year-old Droid (perpetually stuck on 2.1--thanks for nothing Verizon/HTC/Google) out of the @#$%& water on just about every level.
Completely overblown statements made by people who obviously favor the iPhone.
There isn't even a paid version of the game for Android, and the only thing that affects performance is the stupid ads! Literally, in airplane mode, the game is as smooth as silk. Turn 3g on, get ads, and watch the game's framerates drop immensely.
he's talking about the launchers and phone apps, all of which can easily be replaced, and don't come anywhere CLOSE to the impact he describes.
Articles like this are here to only reassure people made the "correct" decision in going with an iPhone. There is no CORRECT decision! It's all about what you like!
I have to disagree with you here - I have an android phone - htc hero 2, several in the office have android phones. We are all running the same version of android. Our user interfaces, hardware configurations and experiences with the phone are fundamentally different. I'm completely unable to run angry birds from the market, two others are and one user can run it, but it's as jerky as hell - with or without airplane mode enabled.
The iPhone has very few current models, all with exactly matching configurations and the UI looks the same - you can't argue that android isn't fragmented and this doesn't have negative impacts on the android user experience.
What makes me smile when I hear that android is overtaking iOS in market share is that an OS which is installed on multiple handsets with multiple carriers often shipping with free hardware is only just managing to hold it's own against one of the most expensive smart phones out there, with only one current model and available on limited carriers. It's a pretty poor show from the competition.
iOS and the iPHone might not be to everyone's taste - and yes, it is about what you prefer to use - but Android is massively fragmented, barely recognisable from one handset to another and offers a wildly varying user experience. You might prefer a certain handset, but to say you prefer Android over iOS is to say that you prefer any drink over a glass of a 1964 Chateau Lafite Chardonnay.
Vague label vs. very specific user experience.
It's very difficult to compare the two operating systems when one of them varies so massively with each handset install and carrier.
So why are Roxio still wasting the money they make from iOS customers on Android versions when they could be putting their efforts into improving and making more special edition versions for the people who are paying their bills?
Enough time wasting, Roxio should get back to the platform that matters.
Platform that matters? Perhaps they are investing time and effort into it because android, by the end of next year, will be much more dominant that iOS. Forgetting android would be like trying to be a leader in computer software and only developing for the mac.... Even if android is more fragmented mobile developers will have to consider it if they want to reach the most people
What makes me smile when I hear that android is overtaking iOS in market share is that an OS which is installed on multiple handsets with multiple carriers often shipping with free hardware is only just managing to hold it's own against one of the most expensive smart phones out there, with only one current model and available on limited carriers. It's a pretty poor show from the competition.
Remember than iphone had about a two year head start over android. It's doing more than hold its own since it has had to catch up in the first place. In future android users are going to get new features long before iOS users because of the fast iterative release cycle, then the iPhone will always be playing catch up. This started when froyo was announced and now just wait until gingerbread gets announced in the next few weeks.
FWIW, I own both an iPhone and an Android phone, so my preference comes from my experience with both, not an irrational bias. My nearly-3-year-old iPhone 3G running the most up-to-date version of iOS blows my 1-year-old Droid (perpetually stuck on 2.1--thanks for nothing Verizon/HTC/Google) out of the @#$%& water on just about every level.
I have an iphone 3g with the latest software too. I would happily swap it for any android phone and I am just waiting for gingerbread to come out before I do. The 3g is the slowest piece of crap phone ever. Apple's code must be seriously bloated to slow my phone down to over a minute to open bloody safari.
It's an important lesson for devs who hear about the growing market share of Android and want to port their app. How much of that market share can actually run their app, and how much of it is very cheap devices?
If other devs take the approach of these guys and make a cut down version for Android, then over time iOS will have the best versions of all big apps.
This has nothing to do with "fragmentation" - the fact that there are many different "skins" for Android wouldn't affect a self-enclosed program like Angry Birds.
It has everything to do with the fact that the developer wrote sloppy code that might have worked on the latest, fastest android phone running the most recent version of Android, but was slow as hell and/or crashed on a 2-year old phone running an earlier version.
If they can create a version of Angry birds that works on a first-gen iPhone running iOS3, they should be able to do the same thing for the Android platform. Blaming "fragmentation" is just using other folks as a scapegoat for their own laziness...
Scalability is something that all programmers on all platforms have to deal with, so I don't understand how this is news...
Does the "fragmentation" of the internet between different browsers, web connection speeds and computer specs prevent web designers from getting their content to folks? Not the good ones....
The issues highlights the problem of platform fragmentation that is endemic to widely-licensed software platforms designed to run on nearly any makers' hardware.
With all these problems, it is very surprising that Android is so much more popular than iOS.
With all these problems, it is very surprising that Android is so much more popular than iOS.
Of course it is not. Android offers CHOICE, iOS does not. Fragmentation is overblown by the apple press. As just posted, a skin or UI overlay is not fragmentation.
If they can create a version of Angry birds that works on a first-gen iPhone running iOS3, they should be able to do the same thing for the Android platform. Blaming "fragmentation" is just using other folks as a scapegoat for their own laziness...
When reading a story on AI I always make a point of tracking back to the original post/tweet/interview etc that the article is based on.
Most of the time there is a pro-Apple/anti-everyone else spin on stories which is fine (and expected) as this is an Apple fan site after all. However far too often AI just make up parts of the article to fit their story.
Just reading AI and not checking the source is like (and take into account I'm not American so I might not be 100% correct on this analogy! ) trusting Fox News as your one source of information on world affairs.
Comments
Then when Steve actually decided (or re-iterated) that they were a "mobile devices company" things started to take off. The new iPad was born.
Now, as i was buying the nano's and classics, the Zune came out. Actually there was tough competition for apple from the start with MP3 players that ranged from $5 to $200... anyway, every time I got a new iPod I was looking at a 3 year old version of the competitors offering. I don't think I've ever seen a Zune2. Maybe there is one... Steve said the reason why they got so far is because they don't rest on their laurels. He's right. That's the whole reason why their products are doing so well. I can go to the store and see 10 models that will disappear next year, or buy a new iPod. Really... is there an actual choice if you have some intelligence what so ever?
In the iPhone it's close, but you have to add in subsidation. Everyone I know "wants" an iPhone. Some simply can't afford it or the plan, so they get 'knock offs'. I don't have one, by-the-way, my company supplies Blackberries.
The iPad and slates in general will fall prey to the same tactic. Apple will always have the newest, better developed product just like in the MP3 share war. I don't think we can even count Android (which is software) in this market. As many here have noted, the next version of iPad will be available when the competitions "iPad" look alike comes to market. They can only research and develop so much before they have to call it quits.
----- my 2 cents.
I have to take back what I said about there being a performance hit with the ads appearing. They must have fixed this in an update or something.
I did notice a small performance lack with the new 4.2.1 iOS. However, some apps actually ran better. I did notice that "folders" seems like it 'takes a moment' before it opens. Small things really, after playing with an iPad for 7 months or so.
I want to write about the UI, there is a right way and a wrong way to design screens, as well as the underlying programs that control them. I am a programmer, and I can assure you that the majority of screen designs that I have come across have bordered from the inept, lazy, pathetic to the criminal. Sometimes it feels that the programmer has simply thrown as many fields onto the screen to capture/display data to/from the database, no concept of design what so ever.
This is common in the IT industry, I can give many more examples.
Web site design is another that seems to have been hijacked by non-technical people, and the end result is chaos. I find most web sites rubbish, even Apple's is not that good, although better than many others in similar line of business.
I had a disagreement with a techie, he was of the opinion that what the user wants the user gets, I was of the opinion that the user doesn't know what he wants, because he/she does not understand the fundamentals of good screen design, period. I have worked at many client sites where I gave them what they I wanted and not what they wanted, in the end they were most happy and were amazed that they could get these features, they were simply unaware they existed.
I program on mainframes, but the concept is no different than on PCs, one site had no idea that function keys could be deployed, help available at the screen or field level, browse-select functionality was something they needed, pop-up selectable data from a list. yes all can be incorporated in mainframe applications, as long as the programmer is passionate and wants to give the best experience to the users.
I agree with Apple's approach to UI design, give users what Apple deems, it just makes sense, Apple are the experts, do you think most consumers have programming/design skills, no they don't. Now we get to the nitty gritty, Android approach is the opposite, give them the option to change the UI experience. I disagree on this approach, although its not a direct correlation in what I mentioned above, there is this fundamental approach taken by Android sellers that run counter to my philosophical approach to UI.
I find Apple's UI experiences on the whole to be enjoyable, there is room for improvements, but at least Apple has the correct principles in place and can build on them.
Each time I visit various techie sites, there seems to be a new phone or tablet displayed, "buy me, buy me ! I have x,y & z, the iPad doesn't, so I must be better, please buy me", hang on why won't you buy me ? What's wrong with me"?"
The fragmentation of the Android market place is going to grow exponentially, how can the typical non-techie consumer possibly keep up ? Will they simply trust the handset maker, when they tell them its the best phone/tablet available?"
Its a scary place, I am a techie, but I'm scared, I would rather be in the Apple world, at least I know what I am getting now, and will get in the future.
I've posted on other boards as well about this subject and will post here as well. There was an article on Asymco about the lack of any common DRM framework on Android. The article also brought up the prospect of the Android fragmentation not only being impossible to rein in but that it may actually be by design.
From Netflix blog:
The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android. The same security issues that have led to piracy concerns on the Android platform have made it difficult for us to secure a common Digital Rights Management (DRM) system on these devices.
Setting aside the debate around the value of content protection and DRM, they are requirements we must fulfill in order to obtain content from major studios for our subscribers to enjoy. Although we don?t have a common platform security mechanism and DRM, we are able to work with individual handset manufacturers to add content protection to their devices.
Unfortunately, this is a much slower approach and leads to a fragmented experience on Android, in which some handsets will have access to Netflix and others won?t.
Also from Asymco:
Recently Google TV was blocked from all major US TV content and Google faced litigation from copyright holders in print publications and before that for YouTube infringements and before that from newspaper publishers for Google News? unlicensed reuse of their content.
I agree that Google seems to have no intent to control the very ecosystem/platform they've unleashed. It's as though Google wants a chaotic free-for-all on the Internet space. What they don't want is a large sliver of that space being controlled by the likes of Apple, Microsoft or anyone else for that matter. Google doesn't want control. Google only wants the "free" space on which they can sell ads and the more "open" and "freer" it is, the more advantageous their position. Google's very goal is to break down the proprietary control of "competing" ecosystems and content owners.
Google's business model and its strategy to execute on that model is indeed a major threat to all traditional tech and media content companies that own IP and copyrighted material - from software companies to TV/movie studios, etc. Google is leveraging the very power of the Internet, which is owned by no one. It is actually a very well thought-out strategy of profiting from the chaos and fragmentation that they hope will overwhelm the efforts of "closed" or integrated ecosystem players like Apple, Microsoft, Nokia or anyone else - even the likes of major backend players like IBM, HP, Oracle, SAP, etc.
Meanwhile, Google's hardware partners (the Android phone/tablet/TV vendors) who don't have the means to take on the integrated players with their own software ecosystem/platform offerings are getting more and more deeply entangled in Google's sticky and ever expanding web as mere commodity providers from which they have no means to escape. They're essentially pawns who do the dirty work of undercutting Google's chief platform adversaries and then getting virtually nothing in return. Ditto for the software developers on the Google platform...
Google's aim is to commoditize the entire Internet infrastructure on which they can profit from through their search monopoly. Taking a page or two from Microsoft's playbook which Gates used so effectively during the 80's and the 90's to dominate the PC industry, Google is using its search monopoly position to render all other proprietary players irrelevant through their use of "open" source software and the marketing of "free" services as search, YouTube, Picasa, Gmail, Google Docs, Maps, etc. How can consumers argue against "free" stuff?
Another interesting article from the Harvard Business Review about why Google is losing this battle with this strategy:
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/11/did_...own_enemi.html
Aysmco's Horace Dediu summarized it well:
"Android is powerful, but as Google is finding out, power can be very dangerous without control."
All those "free" things like what Google has put out, e.g. Docs, Maps, aren't really free. It just feels that way because the end user doesn't have to put out any money. All of those are basically advertising-funded. Google distributes users' search habits to advertisers so that the advertisers can target their ads to you.
At some point, the truth will catch up with all the Android folks (and their fans): Nobody, except for service providers (i.e., not Google, not the handset manufacturers, not the developers, not retailers), is making a whole heck of a lot of money off this platform.
When they finally realize it, the platform will end up in the dustbin (or at best, with the lower-end users).
Note: I am not saying that 'Apple Is It,' as much as Android Isn't It.
I don't know about the breakdowns but I know for sure that Google definitely has high profit margins, significantly higher than those of the Android manufacturers. This is to be expected. It's similar to what's happening in the PC ecosystem. Microsoft has the high profit margins but the manufacturers have no more than a razor-thin margin. By using Windows, manufacturers are robbed of the ability to innovate and differentiate their products. Pretty much the only avenue for product differentiation is on price. That's why PCs are so much cheaper than Macs. There are so many devices out there that aren't that much different. PCs have been been reduced to almost a commodity. Neither Microsoft nor the manufacturers can establish a brand.
The margins for Samsung and other Android manufacturers are not even in double digits, and some are in the negatives. Carriers are handing out Android phones like candy. However, at least with Android, since it's open-source, manufacturers actually have some avenues to differentiate their products, but still, the main point is price. The results is that Google has the high margins while the manufactures are relegated to Foxconn clones, making no more than broken pennies on the dollar.
John Carmack is somewhat inhuman when it comes to game programming. Almost all regular developers are "mere mortals"
Somewhat inhuman?
source
Prior to the release of the iPod with video, Jobs disparaged watching video on a handheld device.
Prior to the release of the iPad and iBooks, Jobs disparaged reading in general, saying nobody reads anymore.
Prior to the release of AppleTV, Jobs had made many comments about Apple not getting into TV as it's a passive activity that Apple wasn't interested in.
Ever get the feeling that his public comments may be a way to throw the competition off Apple's tracks?
Completely overblown statements made by people who obviously favor the iPhone.
There isn't even a paid version of the game for Android, and the only thing that affects performance is the stupid ads! Literally, in airplane mode, the game is as smooth as silk. Turn 3g on, get ads, and watch the game's framerates drop immensely.
And the reason there isn't a paid version...? Because, as the developer has explained, it's too hard to get the full version with all features to work well enough on enough Android phones to justify charging for it. Thus, Android users get the "lite" version subsidized by ads.
This is a circular argument, i.e., a completely overblown statement by someone who obviously favors Android.
FWIW, I own both an iPhone and an Android phone, so my preference comes from my experience with both, not an irrational bias. My nearly-3-year-old iPhone 3G running the most up-to-date version of iOS blows my 1-year-old Droid (perpetually stuck on 2.1--thanks for nothing Verizon/HTC/Google) out of the @#$%& water on just about every level.
You mean they even have fragmented device naming? It rarely happens, but you really out-dilgered the original poster here :-)
Hilarious! out-dilgered!
Completely overblown statements made by people who obviously favor the iPhone.
There isn't even a paid version of the game for Android, and the only thing that affects performance is the stupid ads! Literally, in airplane mode, the game is as smooth as silk. Turn 3g on, get ads, and watch the game's framerates drop immensely.
he's talking about the launchers and phone apps, all of which can easily be replaced, and don't come anywhere CLOSE to the impact he describes.
Articles like this are here to only reassure people made the "correct" decision in going with an iPhone. There is no CORRECT decision! It's all about what you like!
I have to disagree with you here - I have an android phone - htc hero 2, several in the office have android phones. We are all running the same version of android. Our user interfaces, hardware configurations and experiences with the phone are fundamentally different. I'm completely unable to run angry birds from the market, two others are and one user can run it, but it's as jerky as hell - with or without airplane mode enabled.
The iPhone has very few current models, all with exactly matching configurations and the UI looks the same - you can't argue that android isn't fragmented and this doesn't have negative impacts on the android user experience.
What makes me smile when I hear that android is overtaking iOS in market share is that an OS which is installed on multiple handsets with multiple carriers often shipping with free hardware is only just managing to hold it's own against one of the most expensive smart phones out there, with only one current model and available on limited carriers. It's a pretty poor show from the competition.
iOS and the iPHone might not be to everyone's taste - and yes, it is about what you prefer to use - but Android is massively fragmented, barely recognisable from one handset to another and offers a wildly varying user experience. You might prefer a certain handset, but to say you prefer Android over iOS is to say that you prefer any drink over a glass of a 1964 Chateau Lafite Chardonnay.
Vague label vs. very specific user experience.
It's very difficult to compare the two operating systems when one of them varies so massively with each handset install and carrier.
So why are Roxio still wasting the money they make from iOS customers on Android versions when they could be putting their efforts into improving and making more special edition versions for the people who are paying their bills?
Enough time wasting, Roxio should get back to the platform that matters.
Platform that matters? Perhaps they are investing time and effort into it because android, by the end of next year, will be much more dominant that iOS. Forgetting android would be like trying to be a leader in computer software and only developing for the mac.... Even if android is more fragmented mobile developers will have to consider it if they want to reach the most people
What makes me smile when I hear that android is overtaking iOS in market share is that an OS which is installed on multiple handsets with multiple carriers often shipping with free hardware is only just managing to hold it's own against one of the most expensive smart phones out there, with only one current model and available on limited carriers. It's a pretty poor show from the competition.
Remember than iphone had about a two year head start over android. It's doing more than hold its own since it has had to catch up in the first place. In future android users are going to get new features long before iOS users because of the fast iterative release cycle, then the iPhone will always be playing catch up. This started when froyo was announced and now just wait until gingerbread gets announced in the next few weeks.
FWIW, I own both an iPhone and an Android phone, so my preference comes from my experience with both, not an irrational bias. My nearly-3-year-old iPhone 3G running the most up-to-date version of iOS blows my 1-year-old Droid (perpetually stuck on 2.1--thanks for nothing Verizon/HTC/Google) out of the @#$%& water on just about every level.
I have an iphone 3g with the latest software too. I would happily swap it for any android phone and I am just waiting for gingerbread to come out before I do. The 3g is the slowest piece of crap phone ever. Apple's code must be seriously bloated to slow my phone down to over a minute to open bloody safari.
PS. Why don't you just install the update http://www.intomobile.com/2010/08/11...ting-handsets/ or root it? Or are you technically disabled?
If other devs take the approach of these guys and make a cut down version for Android, then over time iOS will have the best versions of all big apps.
It has everything to do with the fact that the developer wrote sloppy code that might have worked on the latest, fastest android phone running the most recent version of Android, but was slow as hell and/or crashed on a 2-year old phone running an earlier version.
If they can create a version of Angry birds that works on a first-gen iPhone running iOS3, they should be able to do the same thing for the Android platform. Blaming "fragmentation" is just using other folks as a scapegoat for their own laziness...
Scalability is something that all programmers on all platforms have to deal with, so I don't understand how this is news...
Does the "fragmentation" of the internet between different browsers, web connection speeds and computer specs prevent web designers from getting their content to folks? Not the good ones....
The issues highlights the problem of platform fragmentation that is endemic to widely-licensed software platforms designed to run on nearly any makers' hardware.
With all these problems, it is very surprising that Android is so much more popular than iOS.
With all these problems, it is very surprising that Android is so much more popular than iOS.
Of course it is not. Android offers CHOICE, iOS does not. Fragmentation is overblown by the apple press. As just posted, a skin or UI overlay is not fragmentation.
If they can create a version of Angry birds that works on a first-gen iPhone running iOS3, they should be able to do the same thing for the Android platform. Blaming "fragmentation" is just using other folks as a scapegoat for their own laziness...
How about instead of getting angry you actually check the source!.
When reading a story on AI I always make a point of tracking back to the original post/tweet/interview etc that the article is based on.
Most of the time there is a pro-Apple/anti-everyone else spin on stories which is fine (and expected) as this is an Apple fan site after all. However far too often AI just make up parts of the article to fit their story.
Just reading AI and not checking the source is like (and take into account I'm not American so I might not be 100% correct on this analogy!