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John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

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Re: John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

#31

Post by jonknee »

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #10
ssp wrote: post #8

Ballmer was not wrong about the iPhone. He said they would get 2-3% of the total phone market , not the smartphone market. He even makes that clear in the part that Gruber quoted: "... 1.3 billion phones ...". That's phones, not smartphones. According to http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/apple-iphone-smartphone-market... in the first quarter of 2010 Apple had 16.1% of smartphones and smartphones were 18.8% of mobile phon…

Windows phones are smartphones. That is the market share that ballmer was talking about.

But yet he mentioned the number of total phones sold (1.3b) while talking market share so he didn't mean smartphones. Apple has a tiny sliver of the total phone market and that's what he meant. Microsoft has an even smaller sliver, but he said he wants/prefers a large chunk of that total market:

> But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of them, than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get.

He was exactly right about Apple's position but there's no obvious way Microsoft will be able gain mass adoption. Google will.

Re: John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

#32

Post by jsz0 »

Google is upping the ante on the iPhone here, though, by adding cloud-based data backup for Android applications

How many apps will actually support this feature? It doesn't sound like it's an OS level feature transparent to third party apps. Am I going to have to keep track of which apps support it and which don't?

Re: John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

#33

Post by ZeroGravitas »

frederickcook wrote: post #14
TomOfTTB wrote: post #4

His points on Microsoft are well made. Given the strategic importance of this market it amazes me how badly they've done. Realize they beat Apple to market by around 4 years (depending on how you count the PocketPC/Phone hybrids) and Google by almost 5 . Now they've tossed the whole thing out and started over with a product that won't be out for another 6 months and in terms of features seems to be equivalent to a fi…

In the PC market, Apple competes on quality, Microsoft (with hardware manufacturers) competes on price. This is the world Ballmer imagined for the smartphone market, but when Google knocked the floor out by giving away the OS (or even paying the carrier a cut of the search revenue), there is no place left for Microsoft to position itself. Unless Windows Mobile is a vastly superior product to Android (and how likely i…

They could just lose money, up to tens of billions, for a decade while working their way up to a solid 3rd place position.

Worked for Xbox.

Re: John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

#34

Post by armandososa »

kenshi wrote: post #20

It's not just Microsoft who seem to be out of the game so to speak. What's going on with Nokia? It's taking them forever to come up with a device and/or platform that seems like a credible competitor to Android and iPhone OS.

And that makes me somewhat sad. I've been a user of Nokia for 10 years and I allways loved those devices. When I purchased my last phone, 1.5 years ago, I gave them a vote of confidence and got an E71 instead of an iPhone.

I regret it every day. Stupid E71.

Re: John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

#35

Post by billjings »

jackowayed wrote: post #16
symesc wrote: post #11

His footnote is interesting: "Although there’s still no decent Android-based equivalent to the iPod Touch." He's right. Based on price, there is no equivalent. On features, the equivalent is a Google Nexus One without a SIM card. Trouble is, that's about to not be available from Google directly. I'm wondering whether we'll be able to buy an N1 without a contract ever again. Disclosure: I bought an N1 directly from Go…

But the N1 isn't even a very good substitute. Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music. Not only is the N1 much more expensive, but it also has a much worse music-playing interface. Until someone fixes the Android music player or writes their own (luckily, a…

I know of a fair number of people buying iTouches for their kids exclusively to play games - to keep them off their iPhones, basically.

Re: John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

#36

Post by andreyf »

Take the current URL from your PC web browser and push it to your device, over the air. If it’s a web page, it’ll open in the Android web browser; if it’s a Google Maps URL, it’ll open in the Android Maps app.

Meaning that now, not only can spyware pop up porn on my parents' home computer, it can also push porn to my kid sister's cell phone? Ditto for apps... I imagine spyware is a thing of the past for most Googlers, but it certainly isn't for the majority of users.

Re: John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

#37

Post by mootymoots »

Periodic wrote: post #29
mootymoots wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any type of wireless syncing is good for me, whether that's with the cloud, or with a Mac/PC on my wireless network. USB syncing is sooo 20th Century

For example, when you buy an AppleTV, iTunes on the same network will detect that there is a new AppleTV that hasn't been synced. Then you synchronize a 5-digit code between them and off it goes syncing over the network. I would love to see iPhones and iPads show up in the same way and not require a sync immediately. This would be right on track with the life-without-wires they were pushing with the MacBook Air.

Apple TV is a good point...Don't know why all other Apple devices don't follow the same process.

Re: John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

#38

Post by eavc »

jackowayed wrote: post #28
CrazedGeek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might I ask why you think the Android Music app is bad? From what I can tell, it's nearly identical to the iPod app on iP* (it's more awkward getting back to your library from the Now Playing screen, but that's all).

The interface just isn't as nice overall. It gets the job done, but it's not as intuitive or pretty as the iPhone's player. Also, the vast majority of people have their music in iTunes. The fact that they can't just plug in the device and tell iTunes to sync might be a turnoff

The vast majority?

Re: John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

#39

Post by jackowayed »

eavc wrote: post #38
jackowayed wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interface just isn't as nice overall. It gets the job done, but it's not as intuitive or pretty as the iPhone's player. Also, the vast majority of people have their music in iTunes. The fact that they can't just plug in the device and tell iTunes to sync might be a turnoff

The vast majority?

Seems like it. I'd guess that it's ~90% of mp3 player customers in the US, but maybe I see a biased sample.

Re: John Gruber's Post-I/O Thoughts

#40

Post by armandososa »

jackowayed wrote: post #16
symesc wrote: post #11

His footnote is interesting: "Although there’s still no decent Android-based equivalent to the iPod Touch." He's right. Based on price, there is no equivalent. On features, the equivalent is a Google Nexus One without a SIM card. Trouble is, that's about to not be available from Google directly. I'm wondering whether we'll be able to buy an N1 without a contract ever again. Disclosure: I bought an N1 directly from Go…

But the N1 isn't even a very good substitute. Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music. Not only is the N1 much more expensive, but it also has a much worse music-playing interface. Until someone fixes the Android music player or writes their own (luckily, a…

    Although people who buy iTouches love all the apps and the ability to browse the web whenever they have WiFi, in the end, they're buying an mp3 player. They're buying it so that they can listen to music.
I don't think you are right.

The touch music player interface is good, but not as good as my old 40GB iPod Video. Man, it has been almost two years now and I still miss the clickwheel.

I got my iPod touch because of the large screen, the wi-fi and the apps. I don't even hear as much music as I've used to because I really hate unblocking the screen to skip songs and change volume.

Clickwheel, I miss you.

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