Did Google Pre-Emptively Block a 4G iPhone on Verizon?

I'm not going to bother to look up references about malware or scareware etc. on Windows. Seriously? You've never heard of spyware or people having to reinstall windows, or registry corruption, etc. etc.?

Also several of those companies were actually born on the Mac (Adobe), or NeXT (Mosaic->Mozilla), or FreeBSD (Yahoo). And the fact that you think Windows enabled Hewlett Packard to be born suggests you have little grasp of history. I was AT HP when the decision was made to standardize on Windows - it seemed like a multi-billion dollar corporation at the time - not something that was just being born.

I don't have a wild imagination - I've encountered lots of everyday users who've messed up their systems by installing software that caused them problems. One of the reasons the App store is so successful is that users don't have to worry that installing software from it will mess them up.

Sorry, there's no double standard.

Firstly the Apple ecosystem includes the Mac, which is open, and would have enabled me growing up to write software for my iPhone or the web or whatever I wanted, much as I do now. I'm talking about the world as it exists now - not some imaginary world where only iDevices exist.

And more importantly, my point is that there IS a very real benefit to the App store for end users. We might not like it, but deceiving ourselves that there is no value to it doesn't help anyone.

I'm not arguing for a world where all devices are closed. I'm arguing that open devices need to actually be better and really open - not just in principle. Competition from the iPhone is why Android devices aren't just slightly better Blackberry's today.

If you don't like Apple's way of delivering that benefit then as you point out the solution is to build better apps and set a standard in your domain. That's why I'm critical of Android. I want Android to be better.

The solution isn't to legislate against Apple or make false-in-practice claims about the openness of Android. It's to make Android genuinely better and more open.

It's also worth pointing out that if it were really open, the community might be more involved in making it better.

This is a ridiculous conflation of the facts.

"The problem is that the 'open access' rules attached to the so-called 700 Mhz C block require the carrier to allow the use of any hardware or software that it can’t prove won’t damage the network."

Put simply, Verizon must allow customers to use "unlocked" phones on their network.

How in the world do we go from that to "Verizon must only offer unlocked phones"? Then the author claims that the motivating actor is Google, who only sells one unlocked phone, and it only sells it in a GSM variant. Jump ahead to a quote from Markham Erickson, who just happens to be the executive director of the Open Internet Coalition. I'm sure his view is impartial and objective, right?

The biggest "tell" that this is link bait is the fact that they chose the iPhone as the headliner. News flash: every Android phone sold on Verizon is also in violation of this rule interpretation.

Apple has no qualms about selling unlocked iPhones. They do it abroad. Apple recognizes the value of a channel partner, and consumers have voted with their wallets. When given the choice between a $600 unsubsidized iPhone (which is still available, by the way) and a $200 phone with a two-year contract, customers go for the cheaper phone. Thus Apple sells phones though the channel that moves units. If Verizon is forced to open their phones, expect prices for Verizon phones to skyrocket, resulting in a significant advantage for their competitors. I find it very difficult to believe that the government would give such an unfair advantage to Verizon's competitors.

The overview on Ars Technica is much better (as usual) and doesn't attempt to sensationalize the impact of the ruling. Note that it's from 2007. There isn't much new here other than the fact that someone is attempting to troll Verizon with an old ruling.

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/07/fcc-sets-700mhz-a...