
We Need to Break the Mobile Duopoly - r0h1n
http://a16z.com/2015/02/09/third-mobile-os-3/
======
amirmc
He's asking for innovation in the wrong place. The OP conveniently ignores all
the other mobile OSs out there such as Windows, Firefox, Ubuntu and also
people like Fairphone. It's pretty lazy to just claim we need more, when what
he really wants is one more (open) _winner_.

I say that he's looking in the wrong place because to "democratize the mobile
operating system" is to ignore a critical part of what makes mobile
worthwhile. All those cloud services and apps that do useful things for you.
How about we democratize the cloud instead? There should be no real reason I
can't point my iOS device at my own infrastructure to co-ordinate sync, backup
and sharing of all my stuff (instead of iCloud). Must I sign up for yet
another third-party service/app just to provide me with an incremental
feature? Why can't I just install apps into my own little cloud backend that
my phone can connect to and do useful things for me? Have _that_ be open for
developers to target and maybe I can pay them for their work. Then it matters
less what physical hardware I happen to be using. Of course, you can only
access the plethora of sensors with a native app but most services I use don't
need this much context. In any case, this is a concept many people are
beginning to advocate for with a variety of reasons. FWIW, some of us are
taking a clean-slate approach to tackle the distributed systems issues
[http://amirchaudhry.com/brewing-miso-to-serve-
nymote/](http://amirchaudhry.com/brewing-miso-to-serve-nymote/)

~~~
bsbechtel
>>There should be no real reason I can't point my iOS device at my own
infrastructure to co-ordinate sync, backup and sharing of all my stuff
(instead of iCloud).

I want this as much as you and everyone else who upvoted you, but the problem
is there is no obvious business model in it. Sure, techies will pay
(app.net?), but the general population doesn't care enough to put out money
for this.

~~~
pjc50
Yeah, this is kind of a serious problem. People want to use popular, or at
least well-advertised platforms. People also don't want to pay any money if
they can help it. So we end up with advertising-funded spy-clouds and
addiction-funded IAPs as dominant business models.

What I'd like to see, and hardly anyone is talking about, is the cooperative
model for this. Servers run by a community of interest; paid staff to manage
the things which really require central clearing (anti-spam and anti-abuse in
particular) and develop the system; users paying on an ongoing basis and being
given a voice and a vote in the way the system is run. Federation with similar
systems.

Bits of this exist already, but only on a very small scale and with the
political/organisational infrastructure - basically individuals running
Minecraft servers and the like.

I suppose I could gather thousands of recruits for something like this if I
said "blockchain" a lot, but in truth it's the opposite: a system that
requires users to trust individual other humans.

~~~
dlu
That sounds like a commune

------
asdkl234890
The web is your 3rd mobile OS.

Sure the developing world still needs very cheap phones, and they require
software close to the hardware.

But in the developed world phones and tables get closer to a full PC every
day. They basically are tiny PCs.

And exactly how the web made Windows and OSX, and Linux less interesting, so
it will make the mobile OSs less interesting.

Because even if you can't get close to the hardware, and might require user
permissions to access hardware features, still a java script and HTML5 based
web app can do almost anything you want on mobile hardware. History keeps
repeating itself.

~~~
amirmc
That's not the way the current evidence is pointing. People do like apps and
so far the pendulum doesn't seem to be swinging back to the web.

See slides 11 & 30 at [http://a16z.com/2014/10/28/mobile-is-eating-the-
world/](http://a16z.com/2014/10/28/mobile-is-eating-the-world/)

~~~
morenoh149
it's more nuanced than that. The web is now also reponsive websites. I'm
bullish on mobile mostly due to that very presentation. I'm counting the web
under mobile.

~~~
amirmc
The graph on slide 11 is pretty clear that the trend is for _more_ time being
spent in mobile apps than on the web. Unless you want to take issue with the
data, there isn't much nuance there.

To whoever downvoted my earlier comment (if it wasn't the parent), please
explain why. I don't have a strong opinion on app vs web so I'm keen to see
data.

------
franciscop
> "For OEMs/handset makers, choice means the ability to do more with software"

Please no, this would only yield to more bloatware. The move of Google is
smart, moving the OS away from OEMs. [Most] manufacturers have demonstrated
again and again that they cannot be trusted with software, since they only
care about profit and putting more and more useless apps into the OS.

We might need more mobile OS, but not for this reason.

~~~
throwawaymsft
Yep. The thesis of this essay is that choice is unequivocally good for users,
handset makers, everyone. Experience doesn't play that out. The experience of
a curated, pruned garden vs. a wild west scammy bazaar isn't a good one for
users.

Here's what happens when you search facebook on Windows Store:

[http://imgur.com/QDHcpG0](http://imgur.com/QDHcpG0)

Choice is great! You can "choose" to install a scam app or the official one.
Incompetent OEMs can "choose" to override system behavior. After all, Dell, HP
& friends were known for really improving the PC software experience.

~~~
bko
I'm not sure when that screenshot was taken but its probably an exaggeration.

Actual search results: [http://windows.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/search#q=facebook...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/search#q=facebook&s=Store)

You do have a point about a free for all. There was this great blog post about
a month ago about someone installing the top 10 free downloads from
download.com and the mayhem that ensues.

[http://www.howtogeek.com/198622/heres-what-happens-when-
you-...](http://www.howtogeek.com/198622/heres-what-happens-when-you-install-
the-top-10-download.com-apps/?PageSpeed=noscript)

~~~
throwawaymsft
The screenshot was real, but from about a year ago. Maybe things have changed.
Here's a blog post showing the cesspool that was search results less than a
year ago:

[http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2014/08/microsoft-windows-
store...](http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2014/08/microsoft-windows-store-
seriously-sucks/)

------
msturgill
Windows Phone is not that bad.

Google has done a good job trying to starve WP users of their services, but I
think we can all survive without Hangouts (Telegram, etc) and Google Voice
(who cares anymore) at this point.

~~~
jarcane
WinPhone8.x is a fantastic mobile OS. The interface is great. I've dealt with
some bugs since switching to the developer preview, but that's to be expected,
and my experience running production code was always rock solid.

But the app situation is abominable, and getting worse. The Xbox program seems
to have been all but abandoned. Microsoft seems to have largely given up even
monitoring the app store; half the top/new games on the lists for the last
several months have been blatantly pirated material, either blatant copies of
whatever iOS/Android fad is running at the moment, or actual emulator ROMs of
old console games running in a buggy, half-broken wrapper. They don't even
have an actual category for reporting copyright infringement on the report
form.

They've also made some missteps on a fair few occasions regarding their own
apps, especially with the move to 8.1; replacing or breaking the existing
functionality like the Xbox Games portal and the Music app.

On the technical side, there's also some issues regarding app support and
limitations on both hardware and software. Manufacturers have to agree to very
strict tech specifications in order to license WP, so very few other than
Nokia have ever bothered to take them up on it. WP apps are heavily sandboxed
and limited in a way reminiscent of pre-multitasking iOS, and the official
line from MS seems to be that the only acceptable way to build WP apps is in
C# with .NET on Visual Studio. Period. Very grudgingly, HTML5 apps are
supported. Other options are possible, but largely only through workarounds,
which often are grossly undocumented or hacky. Even MS' own other languages,
like VB.net and F# are not officially supported, save as libraries in the
latter case. (though again in the latter case, MS seems to not believe anyone
should want to build full apps in pure F# _at all_.)

The OS and the interface themselves are great, and some of those limitations
are no doubt part of why by forcing a more predictable environment. But a lot
of it just seems to be MS repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot, and I
dread to think how much worse it would get if MS had any actual leverage on
the market.

~~~
V-2
If they cared to see their app ecosystem grow, they wouldn't charge developers
100$ (which is actually 1$ more than this greedy evil empire of Apple does :))
for a licence you need even to install your app on your own darn phone

~~~
minthd
Really ? Their OS really shines in low cost devices aimed at the developing
world(it's supposed to be much better and cheaper than whatever android can
achieve). I would imagine a $100 is a substantial barrier for developers
there.

~~~
tartuffe78
In my experience developing for both, Android is much easier to develop for.
Part of this is the 3rd party services that support Android (Crash logging,
analytics, etc.), but even the Play Store's crash report dashboard is so much
better than the half-baked crash reporting the Windows Phone and Windows Store
have.

Unless you are developing for iOS you can't have all of the devices your users
might have, being able to solve issues remotely is huge. Especially when you
are dealing with hardware issues on all of the Windows hardware out there.

------
jankeromnes
Call me biased, but Firefox OS makes the web run on 25$ smartphones, is fully
open and customizable because it's the web, has the biggest "app store" of the
world because it runs any web app, is totally royalty-free (just like the
other Mozilla projects), and is already being shipped on lots of devices all
around the globe. How's that for an open, unlocked and innovation-friendly
alternative?

~~~
minthd
It's just the reviews on such low cost phones runing FFoS are pretty bad, and
once you climb to $65 or $100 , windows phone and android offer much better
alternatives.

~~~
jankeromnes
Most of these reviews are unfair (comparing a 25$ FxOS to devices at 2x the
cost or more) but you make a point about FxOS not being attractive for higher-
end. That's part of why it's currently being reinvented.

------
pjmlp
We already have a 3rd mobile OS, it is called Windows Phone and is doing quite
well (actually more than iOS) in a few European countries.

~~~
jarcane
Pretty much only Finland, really, and that's because of the local Nokia brand
loyalty and aggressive local pricing. With MS axing the Nokia brand, I see
Samsung picking up the slack easily if they dare to compete on price like they
do in other countries rather than trying to angle as a luxury brand. I'm
already starting to see a lot more Galaxies and iPhones on the street in
Helsinki and Tampere these days.

~~~
pjmlp
No, unless it changed the southern countries have a lot of them.

Windows Phone are the only alternative to Android, when you are buying pre-
paid phones and not willing to shell out more then 500 euros for a mobile
phone, when earning 400 euros on average.

Even the contracts are not an option for such users.

~~~
jarcane
Fair enough. I haven't kept up with the numbers in a while.

I can certainly understand the price issue, it's the reason I went with a WP
here in Finland: My Lumia 1320 was only 300€. Nothing comparable for Android
or iOS was available for less than twice that.

------
andybak
My biggest hope is that breaking the duopoly makes it essential that someone
cracks the nut of cross-platform development - and hopefully forces the focus
back onto web apps or a similar open technology.

Firefox saved us from an Internet Explorer world. This time round it seems
that we need more than just one caped crusader.

~~~
asadotzler
"Firefox saved us from an Internet Explorer world. This time round it seems
that we need more than just one caped crusader."

Or a whole lot more people joining us in the fight. Mozilla is as capable as
you all make it.

------
lovelearning
Tizen, Firefox OS and Ubuntu are probably the candidates, but I think Tizen
has a combination of things going for it:

1) It's not based on AOSP (unlike Firefox OS)

2) Supports both native and HTML5 apps (Firefox OS apps are limited to HTML5)

3) Backed by Samsung, still a powerful hardware player in most markets. Both
Firefox OS and Ubuntu [have had/will have] a tough time getting device
manufacturers to adopt their OS, but Tizen doesn't have that problem.

~~~
pjmlp
Sorry but I don't buy into Tizen.

They already did a full native API revamp a few times, with no upgrade path
every time it was done.

First they threw out the APIs they got from Meego and replaced with straight
Bada C++, then they did a facelift, but kept the Bada feeling to the APIs[0],
now C++ is out the door and one is supposed to use EFL with C.

Also the documentation leaves a lot to wish for.

[0] Similar to the Symbian C++ dialect, dual step initialization, handles,
macros for exceptions

~~~
aceperry
Yeah, sounds bad. The constantly changing API is just too much to keep up
with.

------
thisIsNotMikey
I think the system will eventually implode. I'm actually here after my app got
arbitrarily rejected by apple and I found Paul Graham's essay on how apple
treats developers. I've spent the last year of my life learning iOS, first OC,
then swift. I've dedicated thousands of hours developing, promoting, and even
helping aspiring iOS developers on SO. I have been a loyal customer,
developer, and investor, but today I sold all of my stock and pledged to never
develop for or buy apple products again. It's just not worth it. We've all
heard the saying the customer is always right, but in this industry it should
be the developer is always right. The current system we have harms developers.
Yes google and apple have incentives to keep it closed, but they can't hold
forever. Although many will argue they are dead, I think web-apps will take
over as more system Apis are supported.

------
DiabloD3
I'm not sure what the article is asking for exactly, we've had a third OS for
quite some time.

We had Blackberry, iOS, and Android; now we have legitimate Windows Phone
adoption, iOS, and Android; and if one of those three should die, we have
FirefoxOS to fill in the gap.

~~~
V-2
It seems to be asking for the third OS to play any significant role, so as to
exert competitive pressure on the Big Two. I also don't think that Windows
Phone is giving them a run for they money just yet.

------
flyinglizard
That sounds like a great way to increase fragmentation. Even the current
duopoly situation is, to me, an anomaly and a general waste of resources, only
existing because of how powerful are the backers and interests of both mobile
OSes. These are two incredibly rich players in a fight for survival, which is
why the market hasn't been completely overrun by one of them.

I'm sorry to say that, but if you want to get more choices and freedom, the
most likely course to succeed is the legal one. Once the prominent player is
attacked with anti trust litigation, they'll open up whatever needed to quiet
things down. That being said, Google is pretty good on openness from the first
place.

Another mobile OS would just mean an awful experience for users, fragmentation
for developers and a temptation for device makers to create crap user
experience. In terms of resources, if you want to see the mobile market moving
forward and not sideways, better invest precious developer efforts in content
and functionality, not on more cross platform madness and reinvention of the
wheel.

Finally, users get a better experience when things are curated. No one can
argue Apple's model doesn't work. People are less concerned about what they
_can_ do with their phones, and more concerned about what they _actually_ do
with their phones, which is why quality and polish win every time over choice
and openness.

------
the_gipsy
Apps that I explicitly installed on my Nexus 5: Chrome-to-phone, Chromecast,
Google Drive (maybe that one came installed?), a metronome, and WhatsApp.

What I'm getting at, is that apps _interfaces_ are generally better than web
pages or "web apps", but _everything else about them sucks_. They nag you
constantly with updates and unsolicited request to do some action, require to
think about permissions, and crash often.

------
withdavidli
Does this argument parellel Linux vs Windows vs OSX to anyone else?

I think the main problem is going to be getting people to develop for an
alternative OS. MS had a paid developer per unique app program, which was
called desparate by some. Comments here state that license to develop for the
WP is a $100??? Jeez, I wonder what their growth team is thinking.

Developers are highly sought after, experimenting is fun, but a lot of people
are looking for stable jobs either from the beginning or they want to try a
start up / own their own business first. This is also a common problem with
trying new programming languages, why choose a new one when established
languages have large user base, jobs are plentiful, and not much worry it's
going to be abandoned 2 years down the line?

There has to be incentives to overcome these barriers to gain large spread
adoption. At the end of the day a lot of it comes down to livelyhood. Will a
person risk time devoting on something new? If a person starts a company on
this new OS, will other developers take that risk to join? Will the
clients/customers be willing to make that switch?

~~~
asuffield
I think the main problem is that if you want to play in the mobile space, you
must invest heavily in lawyers:

[http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/1153292](http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/1153292)
[http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/whos-suing-
whom-i...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/whos-suing-whom-in-the-
telecoms-trade/)

It's not the walls that keep people out, it's the sharks.

------
fpgeek
_Think about the type of deep integration that Apple-owned Siri has on
iPhones, or Google-owned Gmail has on stock Android phones, for instance.
Those apps operate much more contextually and fluidly, and far more
powerfully, on those phones than 3rd-party apps downloaded from an app store
would._

While I understand the point about Siri, Gmail (of all the Google apps) seems
like a terrible example of the same thing on the Android side (Maps and its
incestuous relationship with Play Services might be a better fit). What does
Gmail do that Microsoft's Outlook app couldn't do if Microsoft were willing to
invest the effort? Maybe I'm missing a feature I don't use, but the best I can
come up with is being bundled with the device, but even there if Microsoft
struck a deal with, say, Verizon, I don't think there's much Google could do
about it.

~~~
jankeromnes
I think a better example for Google's deep integration into android is the
"Google Search app" (previously "Google Now") that is sort of a Siri-
equivalent: you can talk to it, it can manage your phone, send emails, create
new alarms, manage your calendar, assist your transit, even change the
temperature at home if you have Nest.

Worth noting that this type of deep integration is totally possible with the
Web: you can use many APIs like voice recognition, alarms, etc. "3rd-party
apps" from the web can very well integrate deeply with your device, if you
allow them.

------
levlandau
This is a classic network effects problem. The two OS's are dominant because
they are powerful two sided networks (developers + users) and so breaking the
duopoly is that much harder. As is typical with these sorts of networks you
really need to solve a problem a user or developer has 10X better than the
existing networks do. The few times we've seen this happen on the internet are
when the new company focuses on a specific vertical (airbnb to craigslist)
and/or is aided by a specific technology wave or breakthrough. I suspect the
"third" "mobile" OS will succeed similarly i.e. it will either solve for a
narrow use case and blow every alternative out of the water and/or be aided by
some new technology. Definitely won't happen via brute force...not 8 years in
at least

------
eloisant
"For OEMs/handset makers, choice means the ability to do more with software"

Well, that's what Google did with Android but the makers were so bad at it
(making the Android worse, not updating...) that Google had to take back
control by moving more and more elements to the Play services.

~~~
andybak
I think Google had mixed motives - it wasn't just the quality thing, it was
that some OEMs were obviously trying to make a platform play of their own.

However the fact that quality was also an issue put me in the very weird
position of applauding the increased centralization of Android.

I'm hoping Cyanagenmod can somehow square the circle here.

------
arikrak
1\. There's no chance of a completely different mobile OS succeeding at any
point in the near future. An OS needs a huge platform of partners to work,
even Blackberry and Microsoft haven't succeeded. The only chance is a fork of
Android that can build off their software and apps, but look how hard of a
time Amazon has with that. (Though obviously a16z is hoping their company
Cyanogen can succeed.)

2\. The more OS's there are, the worse it is for companies that have to build
apps for multiple systems. It would be easiest if there was just one OS, but
like Communism, that doesn't work out. So a duopoly seems like the best
compromise.

~~~
jbigelow76
I agree with you on the first point. I think it might be worthwhile for MS to
give up on WP and go all in with their own fork of Android, specifically
because of how hard of a time Amazon has had. If MS joined Amazon with their
own individual forks between the two of them, along with MS's services that
could replace Google Play Services (Outlook for GMail, Cortana for Now, Maps
for Maps, etc...) that might capture enough of the Android user base to
incentivize Android devs to target all Android app stores and not focus just
on Google Play. That would break the duoply not at the OS level but it would
mean that Google would have to compete harder to keep Android users on their
implementation rather than MS/Amazon/Cyanogen's.

------
RyanMcGreal
Duopoly? Worldwide, Android's market share has increased from under 60% in
2011 to around 85% by the end of 2013. Likewise, over the same period the iOS
market share has gone from around 20% to just over 10%, while all other
platforms have dwindled down to the remaining <5%.

[http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-
share.jsp](http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp)

The only sense in which this is still a duopoly is that the iOS platform,
while a relatively tiny share of the total market, is still a significant
share of paid apps.

------
fiatjaf
What? You haven't heard of Firefox OS? You totally should! Check out this blog
post for a small sample of the amazing power of Firefox OS: [http://binary-
choice.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/firefox-os-is-d...](http://binary-
choice.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/firefox-os-is-developers-best-friend.html)

Seriously, if you want more mobile OSes, but you're not even considering
Firefox OS you should probably shut up and start writing your super-powerful-
mega-winner OS yourself and stop complaining.

------
midnitewarrior
There is a viable 3rd ecosystem out there and it is Microsoft Windows Phone.

However, the existence of Windows Phone has proven that developers do not want
to support more than 2 mobile platforms. It creates a barrier for entry and
support updates if you want to keep all of your platforms at parity.

As a result, the fate of any 3rd ecosystem is a slow non-growth existence in
the froth of the industry platform churn.

------
newman314
We had one. It was called WebOS.

Too bad that bad execution and implementation killed it before its time. =(

~~~
walterbell
Did the open-source project go anywhere?

~~~
newman314
Not really.

~~~
walterbell
WebOS (or a variant) seems to be in LG TVs, [http://www.cnet.com/news/hands-
on-with-lgs-webos-smart-tv-is...](http://www.cnet.com/news/hands-on-with-lgs-
webos-smart-tv-is-simple-enough/)

~~~
newman314
LuneOS is probably more applicable. [http://pivotce.com/2014/09/01/official-
release-of-luneos-and...](http://pivotce.com/2014/09/01/official-release-of-
luneos-and-project-updates/)

LG hasn't given me a TV to hack on =) so I have no idea how much things have
changed under the hood. I liked the Samsung TVs till the recent overly
invasive creepiness (mic, ads etc.) Maybe I'll get a LG next time.

------
melling
What happened to fixing the desktop _monopoly_? Two decades with Microsoft >=
90% of the desktop. It wouldn't matter if it was Apple with 90%. One company
with that much market share hurts innovation.

------
alphadevx
I went from webOS to BB10. The market still offers us options (for now).

------
johnnyhead
There are Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 that are both excellent OSes.

~~~
aceperry
BB10, yes. WP, not so much. It may be better than the older Windows mobile,
but not really in the same class as iOS and Android.

------
nateguchi
It's a shame Blackberry's new OS didn't take off...

~~~
aceperry
Really. I liked the hardware and BB10 very much. They had lots of unique and
innovative features which would've made Blackberrys a viable 3rd OS.

~~~
dublinben
The Blackberry Classic would have been an excellent phone _five years ago_.
Unfortunately, they've been playing catch up to Apple and Android OEMs for
almost a decade.

------
bonn1
> We Need to Break the Mobile Duopoly

Yes, we all know this—maybe the OP wouldn't mind also to tell how we or
whoever should break this duopoly if even Microsoft is not able to.

------
PaulHoule
Huh?

I thought he was talking about AT&T and Verizon.

~~~
dredmorbius
My thought as well. And a vastly more interesting conversation to have.

My sense is that with ubiquitous WiFi and IP based protocols, I can ditch my
Smartphone for most uses, and with it the massive amounts of intrusion and
data surveillance it represents. A small "feature phone" (with vastly superior
battery performance) for general comms, and functioning as a modem in a pinch,
with a tablet that's used in a cache-and-burst mode most of the time, and with
more continuous connectivity where that's available.

Mobile phone operators are well on the way to making themselves obsolete.

~~~
PaulHoule
He's a VC so he probably thinks that $10 a GB is cheap.

