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Is Android Only Surging Because Apple Is Letting It?

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Re: Is Android Only Surging Because Apple Is Letting It?

#21

Post by kylec »

xsmasher wrote: post #11
arnorhs wrote: post #8

I found very few factual things in that article. He's trying to make a point that android devices are worse or the only feature they have is that you're not forced to use Verizon. (where he's obviously forgetting that there's a universe outside of the US) There are a dozen or more elements that are better about the iPhone. Everything from the big: the App Store versus the Android Market (from the consumer perspective…

There's more hacker affection for Linux than Windows, but somehow the year of Linux on the desktop was always right around the corner. Palm also had a devoted developer following, but it couldn't make up for mistakes at the mothership. In short history may repeat itself, but not the way you hope.

This is true. Money is a better predictor for success of a platform than hacker buzz, and right now iOS is still very dominant in terms of how many users are willing and able to buy apps and in-app purchases, and how much they're willing to spend. The Android Market is still largely dominated by freeware, which is partially due to restrictions that limit the countries in which users are able to buy apps.

Re: Is Android Only Surging Because Apple Is Letting It?

#25

Post by samiq »

xsmasher wrote: post #11
arnorhs wrote: post #8

I found very few factual things in that article. He's trying to make a point that android devices are worse or the only feature they have is that you're not forced to use Verizon. (where he's obviously forgetting that there's a universe outside of the US) There are a dozen or more elements that are better about the iPhone. Everything from the big: the App Store versus the Android Market (from the consumer perspective…

There's more hacker affection for Linux than Windows, but somehow the year of Linux on the desktop was always right around the corner. Palm also had a devoted developer following, but it couldn't make up for mistakes at the mothership. In short history may repeat itself, but not the way you hope.

just take a look at http://bit.ly/cUF0zC and see the disruption of experience there is between the myriad of flavor implementations in android... just for a single task which btw... is not implemented across all phones.

android still has a good way to go to catch up and in order to google get there they have to add more control to the experience and succeed because it is good and not because is good enough

Re: Is Android Only Surging Because Apple Is Letting It?

#26

Post by sprout »

siglesias wrote: post #16

I personally haven't seen this kind of discussion change a single opinion. As for the title question, we've all seen the customer satisfaction numbers and the willingness to switch numbers: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/smartphones/?p=816 , so I think, hinging on the credibility of these data, it's an empirical fact that iPhone stands a lot to gain by going to Verizon. If you're an iPhone developer, like myself,…

The people comparing Apple's approval process to 1984 are clearly drawing parallels with the torture scenes where the protagonist is ultimately convinced that he shouldn't have done what he did and Big Brother is ultimately right - which sounds exactly like Apple. If you don't like it, it was a good choice and you're just looking at it from the wrong angle.

You're speaking in black and white where shades of gray are clearly the order of the day. Google exhibits certain traits of the 1984 state, Apple others.

Re: Is Android Only Surging Because Apple Is Letting It?

#28

Post by Daishiman »

xsmasher wrote: post #11
arnorhs wrote: post #8

I found very few factual things in that article. He's trying to make a point that android devices are worse or the only feature they have is that you're not forced to use Verizon. (where he's obviously forgetting that there's a universe outside of the US) There are a dozen or more elements that are better about the iPhone. Everything from the big: the App Store versus the Android Market (from the consumer perspective…

There's more hacker affection for Linux than Windows, but somehow the year of Linux on the desktop was always right around the corner. Palm also had a devoted developer following, but it couldn't make up for mistakes at the mothership. In short history may repeat itself, but not the way you hope.

Yet most of the software development done nowadays is web, and guess which is the favorite target for web deployments?

Linux is coming of age in a post-desktop world, so the question is almost irrelevant. What IS relevant is that the biggest web technologies being used right now, as well as the technologies that will some day become dominant (Ruby, Scala, Haskell, Node.js, and others) are primarily for Linux and by Linux devs.

But as far as smartphones go, the question is still open, the market is still up for grabs, so developer-friendliness is going to be a top priority. Right now iPhone may be the top platform, but I would not underestimate Google's ability to appeal to developers (neither Apple's ability to make successive, giant leaps).

Re: Is Android Only Surging Because Apple Is Letting It?

#29

Post by Daishiman »

happybuy wrote: post #10

I think evidence points to this being true. For instance, in Australia - a technically advanced market where the iPhone is available on every major wireless carrier - the carrier exclusivity doesn't warp market share in Androids favour: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/surging-iphone... As of May 2010, Android is at 2.1% smartphone market share, the iPhone is at 40.3% smartphone market share. In the US,…

That is highly dependent on the availability of handsets and plans, so there's never a true disconnect between OS, handset, and plans.

In South America, Motorola pushed the Milestone model, hard, and it's just as if not more popular than the iPhone, but both are dwarfed by Blackberry, and the Milestone is the only real high-end Android device available. If the Nexus One or Galaxy S were for sale the numbers would be very different.

Australia, just like many other countries, has fairly hefty import tariffs on high-tech goods, so the country of origin of different devices has a nontrivial influence on handset availability, and thus general popularity of each platform.

Re: Is Android Only Surging Because Apple Is Letting It?

#30

Post by zmmmmm »

It's a shame he didn't really actually address the question that is the title of his article. Whatever else we know about the Apple vs Google situation one thing is sure: Jobs is seriously burned by Android's success and there is not a chance in hell he is "letting" Android win. Whatever is happening out there is happening despite Jobs' best efforts to stop it, not because he is "letting" it happen.

Personally, I think that just as there is a slightly delusional sense about Apple's competitors that all they need to do is make something in the same category as an Apple device without any of the design brilliance or attention to detail to succeed, there is also a slightly delusional part of the Apple camp where they believe that design and enforced simplicity is the be-all and end all of the user experience. Like this guy who is simply confounded that anybody is buying Android phones and hence comes up with, by process of elimination more than anything else, that it must be AT&T's fault. In reality, many people actually care about features, power and flexibility too. Nobody likes to think of themselves as being paternalised and Apple does that all the time. Not to mention that many people dislike being treated as a channel for mass-market commercialism that Apple wants them to be.

My mother came to me last week for the third time to plead with me to tell her some way - any way - to use something other than iTunes to manage her iPod Touch. She doesn't understand it. It confounds her at every step. She hates it. I told her what I always tell her: "Look, there are ways, but the bottom line is, it is designed to be used a certain way, and only that way. Get to know that way, try it out how it is intended to be used and you might find it is wonderful - many people do. But in the end, Apple is not about choices and alternatives, they are about simplification and control. If you really dislike it after really trying it Apple's way, I think you should think about getting a different device." She came back a bit later and asked me how much her iPod Touch might sell for on ebay.

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