
Motorola sees future in Google's Android OS - gibsonf1
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/11/BUV719LAEG.DTL
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antirez
I hope Motorola or somebody else will put a low-cost android phone in the
market with the ability for the owner to replace the whole operating system
and public full specifications.

In a closed environment Apple will win because the iPhone just rocks from the
point of view of the quality and design of the UI, the amount of applications,
and so forth, but something really _open_ can contrast the iPhone using the
Apple everything-close policy against itself.

~~~
herval
'really open' is also a huge headache to support: could you imagine the level
of training the telecom operators would have to receive in order to take calls
from users of this open phone when they accidentally hid the SMS function,
deleted important system files by accident or even formatted the phone?

Also, openness is not necessarily a good thing - specially for mass markets.
If people really, really wanted to 'replace the whole operating system',
wouldn't they all have migrated to linux (on its thousand formats) already...?

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andreyf
_'really open' is also a huge headache to support: could you imagine the level
of training the telecom operators..._

It's not the telecom's responsibility to support your phone's OS any more than
it is your internet provider's responsibility to support your computer's OS.
The point that was made is that an open device, analogous to the PC in the
early computer days would be a Good Thing for the phone ecosystem.

~~~
herval
and that's exactly why most internet providers specify they only support
Windows (some include OSX, but not many AFAIK): if you call them with your
all-custom OS and complain about faulty Internet access, they can simply say
it's not their problem...

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chubbard
Motorola is so screwed right now they have NO choice but to put faith in the
one OS that's looking for people to pick it up. They are seriously about be
out of the race.

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dminor
Motorola is going to need more than the 3rd Android phone on the 4th place
carrier to save themselves. Hopefully they have a Verizon Android phone up
their sleeve.

That said, it's great to see the flood of Android phones hitting the market.
Time to finish up that little game I've been hacking on.

~~~
shade
They are apparently releasing an Android phone on Verizon later this year:
[http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/30/motorola-sholes-
android-p...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/30/motorola-sholes-android-
phone-headed-for-verizon/)

I'm definitely going to be watching that. I have an iPhone 3G right now and am
fairly happy with it -- but I would really like to take advantage of Google
Voice's voicemail transcription, as I'm deaf and if works even halfway
decently it would be a huge thing for me.

That, and I do think Android does notifications (the drag-down notification
panel) far better than the iPhone does. The potential sticking point for me is
that for work, I need Exchange support that's at least as good as the
iPhone's.

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meta
I don't use Exchange so I am not sure how good it is comparatively, but the
HTC software in Canada (on Rogers) has Exchange support. That code has been
taken and made available through back-channels to other android OS users.

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tfh
I see in webos more potential than android. But google has a far more
open/aggressive approach than palm.

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jsz0
I would have agreed with you a few months ago but Palm has totally dropped the
ball on WebOS. It's slow, buggy, missing tons of basic features. I just don't
think Palm has the resources to put into WebOS that are required to keep up
with Apple & Android. Unfortunately they are falling further behind, not
catching up. It would be generous to say WebOS is even on par with iPhone 1.0
at this point IMO.

