

Android Is Apple’s Burger King - lawn
http://regulargeek.com/2010/04/04/android-is-apples-burger-king/

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jsm386
Affirming the author's point, Burger King just added a new breakfast sandwich
to their menu. In their advertising they are surprisingly open about its
origins:

 _In a new 30-second commercial from agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky, BK's
mascot, the King -- armed with a flashlight and donning a hoodie -- breaks
into McDonald's headquarters in the wee hours of the morning to copy the
recipe for McD's Sausage McMuffin with Egg sandwich. A voice-over says, "It's
not that original but it's super affordable ... egg, sausage and cheese on a
toasted English muffin."_

<http://adage.com/article?article_id=143106>

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tptacek
You can't get the onions taken off a burger at McDonalds?

~~~
RK
Maybe it's a secret that you can "have it your way" at McDonald's as well. I
always order the big Mac without onions or pickles.

~~~
electromagnetic
Agreed, I've been able to do this in every McDonalds in a half-dozen
countries. My brother hated pickles and always got them removed, I don't know
what McDonalds this guy goes to but he should really complain to head office
about them for poor customer service because McDonald is _much_ better with
customers than this article is suggesting. I've had them substitute and switch
almost everything at one point or another and in multiple different stores
without a problem.

The only company I've known to be better is Wendy's who will do virtually
anything you want to a burger.

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colinplamondon
This would be true if Android didn't suck.

I've had an iPhone for three years and got a Nexus One, supposedly the best
Android handset, last month. My company makes some of the top book apps on the
iPhone and we decided to pay for a port to Android. So, I used the Nexus One
as my primary phone for a month.

It's awful. The keyboard is inaccurate, the interface is awkward, the default
mail app requires the use of hard to hit hardware buttons to check a different
account or even compose mail. The icons have no consistent theming, making the
platform look thrown together. Android just is just not a good operating
system.

The hardware itself? Fine, though the OLED display oversaturated colors, which
makes the apps all look 'off'. They had developers targeting one type of
display, then changed to one that makes everything look strange- not exactly
stellar platform planning.

To say that Android is following in the footsteps of Apple and then improving
on the product is ludicrous. Android is like Windows 2.0. Maybe in another ten
years they'll have a successful clone of the iPhone OS 2.0, but, for now,
they're still nowhere close to being there.

And of iPhone 3.0 or 4.0? You've got to be kidding.

~~~
moe
The fun-part: 99,9% of end-users don't care about any of what you just said.
They care about being able to get a fancy touchscreen handset with "apps and
all" for $99. That's how android is gaining initial market share.

I personally have a G1 and yes, it sucks. But I've also seen the progress they
made during the one year I have owned it and it's quite impressive, to say the
least.

Your assessment that android is not up there with the iPhone yet is correct.
But the nexus is much closer to the iPhone than you make it out to be. For
each of the shortcomings you mention there are also upsides (multitasking!).
I'm giving it 2-3 generations before the android handsets surpass the iPhone.
Unless apple comes up with some big changes ofcourse - like introducing
multitasking which will be considered a basic smartphone feature soon.

If history has taught us anything then that open always wins. If the apple
closed platform manages to suppress the android open platform perpetually then
that would be a first.

~~~
tptacek
I don't know what world you live in, but in mine, Apple is crushing Google, so
I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of users don't care about the "progress" Google is
making either.

~~~
gte910h
The iPhone sold 25.4 million units last year (15% of the market share). There
were 7.7 million Android units (8% of the market share) sold. As the first
iPhone came out 1.25 years before the first Android phone, this is by no means
a crushing. Android has only recently been advertised, most of that by Verizon
(99% of my customers who ask about android ask about Droid, not Android).

The fact you can get android phones for free/cheap and on almost every carrier
is likely enough to grant them a larger eventual marketshare than iPhoneOS.
There are only so many AT&T subscribers (or people willing to be AT&T
subscribers after that wiretapping thing and their poor performance in
cities).

You can like the iPhone better (and I do) and still admit "Oh hey, Android
phones are getting sold _a lot_ these days".

Source:
[http://technorati.com/technology/android/article/nearly-8-mi...](http://technorati.com/technology/android/article/nearly-8-million-
android-phones-sold/)

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stcredzero
How can 15% = 25.4 million while 8% = 7.7 million?

~~~
gte910h
Yeah, looks like I had issues with copy pasting and rounding. Look at the
article for real numbers.

