
The Android Explosion: How Google’s Freewheeling Ecosytem Threatens the iPhone - pathik
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/mf_android/all/1
======
cletus
In another thread here someone mentioned that they have "Lisp fatigue",
meaning they're just tired of reading ad infinitum threads about just how
great and awesome Lisp is. It's gotten to the point of being repetitive and
boring.

I feel exactly the same way about iOS vs Android.

Ultimately, Google is a search and advertising company. From our (disclaimer:
I work for Google but have nothing to do with Android) perspective, I believe
Android is a stellar success as the more people use the Internet, the more
money we make. Android has successfully (IMHO) commoditized the smartphone OS,
which is good for everyone who isn't a mobile OS maker.

Apple is a consumer hardware company and a stunningly successful one at that.
Android is a means to an end for Google just as iOS is a means to an end for
Apple.

So all these "analyses"/opinions basically miss the point because Apple and
Google are playing two different games.

What's more, I find Apple coverage to be incredibly shortsighted. Like when
the Xoom came out in January and the usual suspects went on about how much
better it was than the iPad, missing two key points:

1\. Consumers don't compare bullet lists of tech specs; and

2\. Apple's successor (the iPad 2) was only 1-2 months out. Both competitors
and commenters are constantly chasing Apple's last year's product, seemingly
ignorant than Apple is a constantly moving goalpost.

Also, IMHO smartphones are largely irrelevant anyway. The real battleground is
tablets and this is one area where Apple has a _phenomenal_ lead. It's my
contention that the digital content and app ecosystems are _far_ more
important for tablets than phones (since a greater percentage of even
smartphone users spend a greater percentage of their time using "standard"
functionality, being SMS messaging, phone calls and maps; I believe data on
app purchases would back this up).

Android is certainly a stunning success and I believe huge credit goes to Andy
Rubin and the executive team. It is second only to search in terms of Google's
successes.

~~~
cageface
_Also, IMHO smartphones are largely irrelevant anyway. The real battleground
is tablets and this is one area where Apple has a phenomenal lead._

As a mobile dev, I'd like to believe this, because the tablet is a much more
interesting dev target. But it still seems to me that smartphones are
ubiquitous and increasingly indispensable whereas tablets are still mainly an
appealing luxury.

------
CountSessine
_The iPhone, revolutionary as it was, didn’t alter one underlying dynamic:
Phone manufacturers—who wanted to make the most capable, feature-rich
phones—were still at odds with the carriers that provide the pricey bandwidth
to power those features. That had led to conflict between Apple and its
carrier partners, especially AT &T. Apple wanted users to take full advantage
of the iPhone’s capabilities, but carriers then had to spend billions to keep
up with the demand on their overtaxed networks. Android finally rewrote that
calculus. Because carriers get a cut of app sales and ad revenue, they stand
to make money when subscribers surf the web or download applications. For
once, the interests of software designers, manufacturers, carriers, and
customers are all aligned._

This is so ridiculously wrong - and anyone who had to do j2me development for
applications for all those silver clamshell phones that we all had before the
iPhone knows it.

The carriers ALWAYS took a big cut of your application revenue. Wanted to sell
a BREW app to Verizon customers? Verizon took a very healthy chunk of your
little program's paltry purchase price. What was genuinely different (and
refreshingly so) was the iPhone's software market - Apple told the phone
companies to go to hell.

Does anyone really remember just how bad all of this was before the iPhone?

------
Kylekramer
The whole embracing and promoting the industrial ugliness of the Droid was a
stroke of genius. It was such a good marketing ploy it is sort of surprising
to learn that it wasn't intentional.

~~~
ssp
It could have been intentional. Whoever designed the hardware might well have
realized that it was important to be deliberately and obviously different from
the iPhone, and that the various managers at Motorola/Verizon/Google just
didn't get that until they saw the ad campaign.

~~~
qeorge
Could be, but I've been there at the moment when the first unit finally
arrives, and its a total piece of crap compared to the designs. The cognitive
dissonance is palpable.

Its surprisingly hard to commission a physical product that looks anything
like your designs, at least its seems that way to an outsider like me. It
could be that actually getting the original iPhone mass produced, and having
it still look good, was as substantial an achievement as the phone itself.

------
michaelpinto
In retrospect I wonder if Google not doing their own phone was in fact a good
thing because it gave other parties the confidence to embrace Android while
keeping Google away from hardware which isn't their strong point. In many ways
it reminds me of Microsoft in the 80s with MS-DOS, although I sort of see iOS
as being closer to to the Apple II than the Mac (although I think that analogy
feels a bit stretched and is oversimplified).

------
exit
is it hard to make/design phones that look as bare and minimal as an iphone,
or is there some other motivation at work?

~~~
there
beyond having talented industrial designers, i think part of it has to do with
apple's status in the industry. think about how many times apple has come out
with a product that is not just a repackaging of old technology, but something
they worked closely with intel, broadcom, nvidia, etc. to create (or re-
engineer and shrink). i don't know that many of those companies would do
similar things for smaller hardware vendors that couldn't commit to as much
volume.

