
It's Not Just Apple vs Android - andycroll
http://andycroll.com/2013/03/15/its-not-just-apple-vs-android/
======
belorn
While its indeed not an zero-sum game where we have a clear good guy and a
clear bad guy, there are some clear good outcomes. Lets call them mini-
victories.

The patent fight is one of them. Rounded corners, button less interface, menu
areas outside the screen. All those are of practical purpose and should never
have been allowed to be design patented. Same goes for basic iconic figures
for applications, a table view interface, slide to unlock and any "natural"
gestures. Then there are FRAND patents, where a clear model for deciding
prices would help in making the market more predictable for new ventures.

If we look at DRM, lockdown and DMCA, we also have a mini-victory that we need
to fight over. Here we have a moral argument that the device owner should be
in control and not Apple, Google or Samsung. Consumers need to get a win here.

I could mention that some actors in all this are behaving worse than others,
and if one had to pick one evil over the others then I know where I would
lean. But that is just a secondary issue in all this. Primarily, consumers and
new actors on the phone market need to win. Those are the true "good guys" in
the fight.

------
TheAnimus
What he and the Gruber peice he references (did he seriously say Gruber isn't
an Apple Cheerleader?!) fail to mention is trend.

 _The trend is your friend_ , one of the first things anyone who's suffered a
trader learns. It's not a case of how high or low something is, but where it
is going to be relative to it's current place.

Press and Markets get this (the former to a lesser extent true) but the fear
is that Apple have had their Halcyon days. Originally Apple didn't need to
worry about such issues as apps, they had the first phone device with a web
browser that people really spoke about liking. Heck they didn't even have GPS
dispite most feature phones in the UK having it with maps.

A lot of analyists are asking, rightly so, why is Apple able to keep making
such money, now the market is cramped. Want a better camera, buy the 920, want
a better screen? Buy the HTC, want a larger phone, buy the S4, want a smaller
phone buy the. Hell I don't even know, but you get where I'm going with this.

The brand of the iPhone people fear to be falling. In the old days of Windows
3.1 domination, the software took months to years to write. Most of them now
adays have little if anything more than weeks of platform specific code. The
_alternate_ marketplace is huge, due to the size of the global market place.
Hell a friend was just telling me how he thinks he'll make a profit porting to
the new blackberry, despite it having very low uptake here in London.

These notions lend people to conclude that what is currently happening with
Apple might not be sustainable. Gruber has been consistently wrong the last
few months (in fact he is always as he predicts little but Apple growth) with
regards to the decrease in share price and failure to develop new market
share.

tldr; It might not be Apple vs Google. But neither are expanding their
userbase rapidily, without encrouging on the other.

~~~
josh2600
It is the ecosystem that Apple sells, not the hardware. People buy Apple
because they know the handset will be supported for a specific period of time,
that every developer wants to sell on iOS and works hard to be there, and that
they can walk into an Apple store and get support any day they want.

For the hacker, most of these things are irrelevant, but for Joe-Schmo who
wants to put minimal effort forward when managing their digital life, the
iPhone is the pinnacle of abstraction.

Apple makes money because they sell the promise of a long, comfortable
relationship and they fulfill it time and again. Even with Samsung, will I be
able to update my s4 beyond Jellybean? The answer is a firm "maybe", but I
know 100% that my iPhone will get updates for years.

That's why Apple makes money, because they sell peace of mind.

~~~
MrScruff
True, and that peace of mind can be appealing to hackers as well. We only have
so many hours in the day after all.

------
gonvaled
Sure there is no good-guy and bad-guy here. But there is a better guy, and a
worse guy, and that largely depends on what you value most.

For me, the tactics of Apple using legal methods to try to squash competition
are a huge red flag, because I happen to think that the consumer is going to
pay for that.

You can think that Apple defending its rights is going to benefit the consumer
long-term by allowing Apple to provide innovation. But my viewpoint is that
Apple can not compete anymore, and is resorting to legal tactics to fight
competition. And that (if they had won) they would have a lock-in in a growing
and very important market segment (high end smartphones).

Luckily the "good guys" have largely won.

It is just a matter of point of view.

~~~
simonh
> For me, the tactics of Apple using legal methods to try to squash
> competition are a huge red flag, because I happen to think that the consumer
> is going to pay for that.

Because nobody ever heard of a mobile phone company suing the competition to
limit their ability to compete before right? I mean before Apple V Samsung it
was unheard of.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2003456/Nokia...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2003456/Nokia-
finally-claims-multi-million-dollar-victory-Apple-breaching-46-patents.html)

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8460899.stm>

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-m...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-
motorola-android-patent-lawsuit)

I do agree with you that competition benefits the consumer. A vibrant Android
ecosystem is in the interests of iPhone users like me. But the Apple lawsuit
was never going to stop anyone else making modern smartphones. That's not what
it was about, which is why despite a (currently) $0.5Bn settlement in their
favour Apple hansn't gone on to sue anyone else. Apple were very clear about
the reasons why they sued Samsung and their objectives, and their behaviour
has been consistent with that.

~~~
gonvaled
Sure, but those are not design-related patents, or natural-gesture patents, or
for that matter designs based on principles being part of human society for
centuries ("slide to unlock" anyone?)

"Nokia finally claims multi-million dollar victory over Apple for breaching up
to 46 patents"

"Camera maker Kodak has said it will sue Apple and Research In Motion (RIM),
the makers of the iPhone and Blackberry, over technology used in their
handsets."

I do not condone those actions. I just think that Apple is here the "worse-
guy", opening a very smelly can of worms just because of animosity towards
Android ([http://9to5mac.com/2013/01/17/google-ceo-larry-page-on-
steve...](http://9to5mac.com/2013/01/17/google-ceo-larry-page-on-steve-jobs-
thermonuclear-war-how-well-is-that-working-for-them))

And yes, Microsoft is an even worse bad-guy (but largely irrelevant in the
smartphone sector), that is why I have not (directly) spent a penny on their
products in over 15 years.

------
wuest
> Nokia (with Microsoft) make beautiful hardware and Windows Phone is lush,
> but for some reason is not getting the market love its quality deserves.

Two points here:

First, it pains me to see MS lumped with Nokia. I'll be clinging to my N9 for
a very long time yet (and probably only move on when Ubuntu or Firefox phones
are compelling). I miss Maemo/MeeGo.

Second, the reason which MS doesn't get the love which its quality deserves
(let's accept that it deserves a lot of love for the sake of this argument) is
that Microsoft owns Skype. Telcos aren't huge fans of Skype, as a rule--it
doesn't quite jive with their values. For Windows Phone, which integrates
Skype by default, to really take off in the marketplace, we need to see the
founding of a telco which doesn't do anything BUT data as their subscription
model. With no voice fees to compete with Skype's inclusion on the phone,
there will be no reason for telcos to marginalize the platform.

~~~
CaptainZapp

      First, it pains me to see MS lumped with Nokia. I'll be clinging to my N9 for a very long time yet (and probably only move on when Ubuntu or Firefox phones are compelling). I miss Maemo/MeeGo.
    

Same here: I'm still clinging to my 2 year old N900, which I still consider a
great phone. When I bought it I knew that the patform is in a dead end, but I
got it anyway and never regretted it.

In fact I still have a brand new N9 in a box in reserve. That's in case that
the current phone moves into a state beyond repair.

What is most interesting is that my pretty ancient clunker feels much more
snappy then more modern smart phones after 6 month, apart from a couple
scratches on the screen it looks and feels still rather fresh.

~~~
wuest
I love my N900! It's on my shelf as a backup phone. Ours aren't all that
uncommon in terms of Maemo users' stories, as I understand it.

------
Tyrannosaurs
Feels a little bit as if it should be filed under "yes but obvious".

When you can find large groups of people who will tell you how much they love
their Android phone and other large groups of people who tell you how much
they love their iPhone, it should be obvious that this isn't a one size fits
all situation.

The one thing he doesn't say (possibly because it's also obvious) is that
whatever side you're on, you should probably celebrate the situation as the
many and varied levels of competitions that exist are driving innovation and
we're all benefiting from that.

~~~
widdershins
Obvious to some of us, perhaps, but fanboy wars continue to rage in tech news
comments, so there are still many who aren't getting the message.

~~~
pjmlp
I used to be a bit like that around 15 years ago, then I learned to appreciate
technology for what it is, regardless who does it.

------
hbharadwaj
I don't think that's necessarily the conversation telcos are having regarding
Skype, Facetime, etc. Skype probably is hated because of bandwidth issues but
that is not the reason for the hate.

Look, Telco love for Android is around the fact that Android handsets are
virtually under their control. They can do with it as they please - bloatware,
ads, etc., Android also filled the lower end market with cheaper phones
retaining the same functionality while Apple only caters to certain segments.

Telcos don't love iOS. iOS is popular with customers and iOS sells. Hence,
Telcos are left with no choice but to support Apple and show their love for
Apple.

Microsoft on the other hand is treated like a step child essentially because
they want to go with the Apple way in not letting Telcos control their
handsets while not having the customer love as of now. The only single reason
why MS is still in the game is because Nokia stepped in to save their butts
with beautiful hardware. Yes, it's a chicken and egg issue for MS as of now
but I think if they hang in there, they will eventually start getting
respectable number of apps and succeed as a platform. Not to mention, Nokia
releasing cheap phones as well.

------
gulbrandr
_Please_! Saying "Apple vs Android" is nonsense, you are comparing two things
that are completly different! It's either "iOS vs Android" or "Apple vs
Google".

~~~
Samuel_Michon
While that's usually true, in this case it should be "Apple vs every company
involved with Android (plus Nokia)". That's not as catchy, though.

~~~
gulbrandr
I understand that. It's just that I hear so many people making the confusion
and it irritates me.

------
pm_ingram
While I can see the argument here (and yes, it's valid), how is it any
different from them promoting either Android or Apple, where with just a few
taps you can download Skype?

Same scenario really - just slightly less convenient.

~~~
fpgeek
What happens if a telco doesn't want Skype in the version of the Apple App
Store or Google Play Store their customers see? It's simple and
straightforward. They make a phone call and it's done. Maybe some grumbling if
the other store doesn't have the same restriction.

Now what happens if they want to call Microsoft about Skype in the Windows
Phone store? I don't know, but I do know that the conversation wouldn't be
straightforward or simple.

------
antidaily
Am I the only one who would love to own an iPhone and an Android and use both?
I wish that was easier to pull off.

------
fixedd
Is he calling "Nexus" a Samsung brand?

~~~
Samuel_Michon
In the same way that Droid is a Motorola brand. Officially, Droid is a Verizon
brand, and Nexus is a Google brand, but other companies make the phones. In
the case of Nexus, half of the models were made by Samsung.

------
cooldeal
From Gruber's article:

>By profit share, on the other hand, according to Canaccord Genuity analyst T.
Michael Walkley, last year Apple took 69 percent of the handset industry’s
profits; Samsung took 34. For just the last quarter, the numbers were 72
percent for Apple, 29 for Samsung. You will note that both the annual and
quarterly numbers total more than 100 percent; that is because all other
handset makers, combined, are losing money

>That’s a statement of fact, in a Reuters news (not opinion) story, about a
company with 70 percent (and judging by last quarter, growing) of the
industry’s profits

I would love to see such a narrative written about Microsoft's server
platform.

How much profit does Windows Server take in the server OS market? How much IIS
take in the web server market? What about ASP.NET vs. Java, Ruby or whatever?
Or Visual Studio vs. Eclipse and the rest in the IDE market? They're beating
free(as in beer) tools and making a huge profits. Their revenue from the
Server & Tools division is about 20 billion a year.

If iOS is beating Android, why can't Windows Server be considered beating
Linux by the same metric?

~~~
DenisM
69+34==103%

~~~
zzzq
>You will note that both the annual and quarterly numbers total more than 100
percent; that is because all other handset makers, combined, are losing money.

<http://daringfireball.net/2013/03/ceding_the_crown>

