
Why Android is the New Windows - m3mb3r
http://blog.mobilesplease.co.uk/why-android-is-the-new-windows/
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saturdaysaint
Since web services are the reason d'etre of smartphones, there are inherently
few switching costs for jumping between leading smartphone platforms and
therefore none of the lock-in that lead to Windows' dominance.

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brianobush
One area where android is similar to windows is that it runs on several
hardware platforms from several vendors, whereas apple has a single (or three:
ipad/ipod/iphone) target platform.

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poundy
In the past, Apple feared IBM, sided with Microsoft and Microsoft beat it.

Recently, Apple feared Microsoft, sided with Google and Google beat it.

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tzs
I wish someone would beat me the way Google beats Apple. Apple is making a
bunch more money off iOS than Google makes off Android, and in the US they are
only barely being beat in market share when Google is on all major carriers
and Apple is on just one. When Verizon gets iPhone, Android will go back to
second place.

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angdis
Android is everybody's whore. Even sleazy ringtone vendors (I mean carriers)
like verizon are able to adulterate android for their own purposes.

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dinedal
I see this as really no different then Dell's bloatware being installed on
Dell sold PC's, though there are worrying exceptions.

AT&T limits some (all?) of it's phones to prevent them access to the standard
Android market. However, I think to combat this behavior you can't call the
phone a Google Experience phone or something without following some basic
ground rules like allowing the standard market, and keeping up with updates.

Some phones do not allow the user to install a custom ROM or root the device.
This is worrying because it would be like buying a Dell that won't let you
reformat with *nix. Of course, there are plenty of vulnerabilities in the wild
(akin to Jail Breaking) that get around this. I believe most vendors prevent
the user from gaining root access to their device to upsell them on features
that don't require any work on their part except flipping a bit in software,
(tethering comes to mind, visual voice mail is another)

For the second part, I believe that carriers aren't going to let go of this
income and become network infrastructure maintainers like cable companies
without regulation, unfortunately.

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GrandMasterBirt
Android cannot be the new "windows" because alot of decisions leading up to
windows in it's current incarnation were driven by the anti-competitive nature
of Microsoft. Android takes the best aspects of windows' business strategies
and incorporates them in an open environment.

So I guess if you are saying android is the phone to run on a bunch of random
hardware which will outsell apple, yes, android is the new windows of
cellphones. In the end it's closer to a user-friendly linux.

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Qz
If by 'user-friendly linux' you mean 'linux without any of the linux showing'
then yes. I can't stand linux, but android is great.

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GrandMasterBirt
Linux is a bit different than people expect:

To me linux is everything under the hood. The File System, The Kernel, the
Open Sourcing of the two, and everything built on top of that.

"I can't stand linux" only tells me that you need to log off from the internet
because guess what most is run on.

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Qz
Right, but my issue is directed at the people who use Android. It didn't start
outselling iPhone because of techies like us alone - 'normal' people use it,
'normal' people who would otherwise never use 'linux' and probably don't
realize they're already using it on their phone, and the key to that is they
got rid of all* the parts about linux that cause headaches for average users.

