
Daring Fireball: Android Opportunity Addenda - nuclear_eclipse
http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/android_opportunity_addenda
======
jacobian
_I worry that’s going to be the Android community — forever talking about the
next year’s batch of phones, because the ones available now just are second-
rate._

That's my worry, too. I remember hearing for what feels like a decade that
Linux On The Desktop will be awesome "next year," and it's only over the last
year or that it's (barely) reaching adequate.

Right now the theory of Android is far better than the implementation. Let's
hope that actually changes quickly.

~~~
cdibona
I'd be optimistic, look at how far we've come in just 10 months of shipping
devices. I disagree with your judgement of mere adequecy, but there is room
for improvement, for sure.

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halo
I think he's wrong.

The problem is that he only sees a single market, and that's the high-end
market that competes with Apple.

Competing with Apple sounds good, but it's hard. The Pre when announced had a
huge advantage over the iPhone which has largely faded away in a matter of
months. Apple have the development team, the advertising money, the branding,
the fashion, the R&D department, and the connections with suppliers to get
hardware features before a small-player can. You're doomed to be forever
playing catch-up.

What's eventually going to happen is that most people will want a product
that's almost as good for a lower price, on a different network, or want
something in particular that's different to what Apple are offering. In the
long-run, that's Android's differentiator, as Apple aren't going to want to
cut features in order to compete on price, or offer a variety of specialist
features such as a physical keyboard.

Finally, I hardly think telling people to wait for the 2nd generation means
that people will be "waiting forever". So far, only a single manufacturer,
HTC, have released Android handsets, and both the G1 (HTC Dream) and G2 (HTC
Magic) were undoubtedly rush-released and flawed. The trickle of much superior
second generation handsets has already begun - the HTC Hero was released last
week, and the Samsung Galaxy i7500 is supposedly out next week in the UK.

~~~
beamso
Fashion is fickle. I'm looking at getting a HTC Hero because a) everyone has
an iPhone and b) managing my music in iTunes has been annoying since I did a
clean install of Mac OS X.

~~~
borism
I second that. HTC Hero seems to be as capable device as an iPhone, but
without crazy restrictions imposed by Apple and carriers.

And it has 5MP camera that will make iPhone owners jealous (although not me -
I had N82 with 5MP and Xenon flash for 1.5 years now), which Gruber seems to
imply is needed to gain from Apple. Frankly I think he is wrong. What's needed
is as capable device and slightly lower total cost of ownership. Hero comes
close IMHO.

~~~
jsares
I have a G1 and still miss my N82. Mostly for the Xenon Flash but also the
great battery life and headphone jack.

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Batsu
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=768358>

A very thorough discussion is already taking place.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
Yes, and I participated in that discussion. But this page is a follow-up
article from the author, and it would most likely get lost in the existing
discussion. I figured the follow-up posed some points that deserved their own
space for discussion, hence this submission.

~~~
Batsu
Ah, you're right. I should have paid attention. It just so happened I was
reading that thread immediately prior to this one.

In any case, for those just finding this one, there is a link to the previous
article now :)

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ZeroGravitas
I've never liked the argument that "the iPhone will fail because it's just
like the Mac and that lost to Windows".

I see even less to recommend the argument that "Android will fail because it's
just like Windows (which everyone uses and makes buckets of money)"

Of course I note Gruber defines success in his own terms: _"where by “work” I
mean “produce a phone and software platform with a state-of-the-art user
experience”"_

But how many people actually care about that? (Don't get me wrong, _I_ do, but
I'm not going to make or break the success of any platform by my purchasing
decisions alone.)

------
ramy_d
i don't understand how the nokia n900 phone running maemo linux can be totally
ignored: [http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/19/nokias-maemo-5-tablet-
sho...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/19/nokias-maemo-5-tablet-shows-up-
again-ready-to-play/) [http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/08/nokia-rx-51-tablet-
captur...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/08/nokia-rx-51-tablet-captured-in-
the-wild/)

rumored specs: [http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/08/nokia-rx-51-tablet-
captur...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/08/nokia-rx-51-tablet-captured-in-
the-wild/comments/20764679/)

~~~
gecko
It's not getting ignored as such; it doesn't exist yet. I own an N800. Its
interface is as best tolerable, which seems to be fairly widely accepted;
that's why everyone says to wait for the N900 and its new, Qt-based UI. But
that's much like John Gruber's point in this article, that the problem with
Android is that everyone's always focused on the _next_ phone, because the
current ones...well, stink.

~~~
nailer
The HTC hero is out now in the UK - and there seems to be quite a few iPhone
users switching, including myself.

