Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

businessweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 44 posts

Re: Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

#11

Post by twerquie »

blueskin_ wrote: post #10
bitwize wrote: post #6

Apple has been doing the right thing all along. Because the very thing that enabled Apple to rise from near bankruptcy to just about the most profitable company in the history of capitalism is providing and controlling an integrated, soup-to-nuts hardware and software ecosystem. A big part of the reason why Android still feels so janky is that it has to cater to multiple hardware vendors and other stakeholders (carri…

Stop using manufacturer-customised versions of Android then.

But that's exactly what the article is suggesting Apple creates.

Re: Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

#12

Post by Tarang »

bitwize wrote: post #6

Apple has been doing the right thing all along. Because the very thing that enabled Apple to rise from near bankruptcy to just about the most profitable company in the history of capitalism is providing and controlling an integrated, soup-to-nuts hardware and software ecosystem. A big part of the reason why Android still feels so janky is that it has to cater to multiple hardware vendors and other stakeholders (carri…

> Because the very thing that enabled Apple to rise from near bankruptcy to just about the most profitable company in the history of capitalism

Adjusted for inflation I think that title still belongs to IBM through the 70s.

Re: Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

#13

Post by danoprey »

Tarang wrote: post #12
bitwize wrote: post #6

Apple has been doing the right thing all along. Because the very thing that enabled Apple to rise from near bankruptcy to just about the most profitable company in the history of capitalism is providing and controlling an integrated, soup-to-nuts hardware and software ecosystem. A big part of the reason why Android still feels so janky is that it has to cater to multiple hardware vendors and other stakeholders (carri…

> Because the very thing that enabled Apple to rise from near bankruptcy to just about the most profitable company in the history of capitalism Adjusted for inflation I think that title still belongs to IBM through the 70s.

Or the East India Company if you want to go even further back.

Re: Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

#14

Post by stillbirthed »

bitwize wrote: post #6

Apple has been doing the right thing all along. Because the very thing that enabled Apple to rise from near bankruptcy to just about the most profitable company in the history of capitalism is providing and controlling an integrated, soup-to-nuts hardware and software ecosystem. A big part of the reason why Android still feels so janky is that it has to cater to multiple hardware vendors and other stakeholders (carri…

The right thing that Apple did was build an manufacturer customized version of Unix (i.e. OSX) because Mac OS7, 8 and 9 had fallen behind the competition. Apple could very well succeed by forking/building on Android

Re: Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

#15

Post by mark_integerdsv »

blueskin_ wrote: post #2

All the article really needed to say was "but then Apple fans would try an Android phone, realise the software is better (and likely start experimenting with having root access to their own hardware, which apple certainly dislike), then get an Android phone comparably specced to and cheaper than the iphone 6 instead of one come upgrade time".

>realise the software is better

At the risk of noshing down some trollbait, could you perhaps qualify this statement or are you just going to go with your subjectiuve view as fact?

Re: Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

#16

Post by phlo »

blueskin_ wrote: post #9
greenwalls wrote: post #4

Instead of making an Android phone Apple should offer Bootcamp for iOS devices so any OS can run there. This works on Macs so why not offer it on iOS devices?

That only works as macs have an x86 architecture.

Most current smartphones are ARMv7, Apple's A7 stands out as a(n albeit slower) ARMv8 SoC. I'm not quite sure about the compatibility between the two, but at least iPhones 5/5C should be architecturally compatible.

Performance might be questionable, as current Android phones tend to be quad-core models clocked around 2 GHz while A6/A7 feature only two cores at around 1.3-1.4 GHz.

Re: Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

#17

Post by WildUtah »

bitwize wrote: post #6

Apple has been doing the right thing all along. Because the very thing that enabled Apple to rise from near bankruptcy to just about the most profitable company in the history of capitalism is providing and controlling an integrated, soup-to-nuts hardware and software ecosystem. A big part of the reason why Android still feels so janky is that it has to cater to multiple hardware vendors and other stakeholders (carri…

The jankiest thing about Android (well, aside from crappy manufacturer skins and undeletable carrier spamware) is the pauses and delays in user response. Those all come from the disastrous choice to use Java as a programming language. User facing software always feels slow when it's subject to the performance losses of automatic memory management. Java is inherently garbage collected and low power mobile devices just multiply the performance failures inherent in that design.

Garbage collection is actually better for performance where instant response isn't important, such as in servers. In UI and realtime it always seems janky and slow.

But even the choice of Java is related to multiple hardware vendors. There was some idea initially that Android might run on non-ARM platforms. That hasn't turned out to be an important use of Android, but it probably helped push Android to Java initially.

Re: Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

#18

Post by Pxtl »

The company that really disappointed everyone is Sony. Sony was Apple when Apple was beige boxes, and then Sony turned into just another commodity vendor when it comes to non-playstation hardware.

The new Xperia products give the hint that Sony is crawling out of that hole, but they have a long way to go.

Re: Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

#19

Post by nicholassmith »

If it wasn't for that quote from Woz, pretty much everyone would go 'well that's ridiculous'. And it is, it is ridiculous, Apple would still want a hardware premium because that's the business model, so they wouldn't be able to try and out price the other manufacturers. They'd gain nothing from it. People that want an iPhone want it for the hardware software combination.

Re: Nothing Keeps Apple From Making an Android Phone Except Common Sense

#20

Post by twistedpair »

Pxtl wrote: post #18

The company that really disappointed everyone is Sony. Sony was Apple when Apple was beige boxes, and then Sony turned into just another commodity vendor when it comes to non-playstation hardware. The new Xperia products give the hint that Sony is crawling out of that hole, but they have a long way to go.

Too true. I remember some of the razor thin VAIO's from many years before the Air was every a prototype. And that from a company that was a leading maker of floppy disks no less.
Post reply on HN