

The Android and iOS War Is Not Mac vs Windows Part 2 - samrat
http://blog.louisgray.com/2011/04/android-and-ios-war-is-not-mac-vs.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+LouisgraycomLive+(louisgray.com)

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kenjackson
Louis is remembering the wrong part of the PC vs Mac wars. Go back to Win2/3
vs Mac. The Mac looked much more like iOS then. Windows 3.11 is like Android
now, and then Win95 is where it looks like Android is going. And then the 15
years after Win95 is what most people remember about Windows vs Mac.

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louismg
It was a long war and each of us remembers different parts. :) In what way
does this dismiss the Mac's ability to get all the software you need even if
the numbers are not perfect?

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kenjackson
_In what way does this dismiss the Mac's ability to get all the software you
need even if the numbers are not perfect?_

My disagreement is not with this, but rather the contention that this battle
is different because Apple was not the developer choice in the past. When
Windows was introduced the Mac was almost strictly better, including 3rd party
SW support.

Over the course of almost 10 years Windows chipped away at that culminating
with Win95. Where the tables were turned with better 3rd party support, better
dev support, and was technologically better.

This 10 year span is very similar to the Apple v Google battles of today.
Google is slowly chipping away at all of the iOS advantages. I wouldn't be
surprised if in 5 years from now people honestly forgot for how long iOS was
almost strictly superior to Android.

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trezor
_how long iOS was almost strictly superior to Android._

Having had both a iPhone (3G) and an Android-phone (since 2.1) I have to ask
in what ways you would argue this position, since IMO its seems strictly a
matter of preference.

Right now I would actually say at least my opinion is the exact opposite. To
me iOS seems utterly stagnant and my Android phone surpassed my iPhone in
every way from the second I got it.

Not trying to provoke a flamewar or anything, just wondering if there is
something I'm missing here and on what basis this argument is made.

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dominostars
If you have an iPhone 3G then your hardware is over two years old, and your
iOS version, if updated, is still feature limited. Maybe that's why it feels
so stagnant?

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trezor
I fired up my old iPhone 3G to use as a gaming-device and MP3-player not too
long back. I updated to latest iOS it would support, which iirc is iOS 4.2.1.

Interested in seeing how the iOS-development had been, I decided to enable all
the features Apple had decided to disable. Basically a quick rooting with
redsn0w where I only re-enabled the official features and I didn't add any
3rd-party hackware to compensate or otherwise distort the experience.

I still feel it is stagnant, but like I said, I realize this may be a personal
preference. Just thought I'd clear up any confusion regarding my ability (and
inability) to use iOS-features as they are available as per today.

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d_r
I know you're talking about features more so than specific models, but I was
tired of my iPhone 3G after using it for a couple of years. It was sufficient
to me feature-wise, but the sluggish response time on every screen was just
frustrating. However, after upgrading, iPhone 4 speed and retina display have
been game-changing to me as a user.

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ugh
I like Apple's products and using Android devices makes me angry but I
wouldn't find it all that bad if Android/iOS were like PC/Mac.

Not with an half dead Apple as the end result but if Apple's position in the
smartphone market were equal to its position in the PC market I wouldn't have
a problem with that. I care about Apple making great products, they don't need
to be a dominant player in the smartphone market in order to do that.

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DaveMebs
The biggest problem with articles such as these is that the author willfully
ignores all of the other mobile platforms currently on the market (Windows
Phone, Blackberry, WebOS (note: ignoring Nokia due the the expected retirement
of their platforms in favor of WP7)). These platforms are much more compelling
than any other OS was during the PC/Mac wars, and dramatically affect the
overall market. Especially when you factor in the fact that all three of the
platforms I mentioned are backed by companies which are willing to throw
/billions/ of dollars into this space. To ignore them when discussing the
difference between the desktop wars and mobile wars is ridiculous.

I was even more surprised when I searched for Part 1 of this article. Not only
did I not find it, but I found this article instead:
[http://blog.louisgray.com/2011/02/windows-phone-7-is-best-
wi...](http://blog.louisgray.com/2011/02/windows-phone-7-is-best-windows-
ive.html) in which the author claims "I believe the Windows Phone 7 experience
to be a serious challenger to both platforms in terms of quality, intuitive
use and simplicity."

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halo
>These platforms are much more compelling than any other OS was during the
PC/Mac wars

Seems a bit like historical revisionism to me. RISC OS, Amiga OS and NeXTSTEP
were all pretty compelling at the time.

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jrockway
_there are many different things possible on [Mac] that can't be done on
Windows_

Like what?

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demallien
Any comparison of the Microsoft / Apple wars to the iOS / Android wars needs
to take into account one major difference: the presence of Steve Jobs.

Jobs left Apple in 1987, after which the company quickly became a stodgy
computer company, a Dell wannabe. They lost their design mojo - anyone else
here remember the dark days of all of the performas, and quadros and powermacs
with impenetrable model numbers after the names? Beige boxes without any style
running an increasingly creaky OS.

Jobs returned in 1997, and immediately the design chops came back, and the
Mac's marketshare has been steadily climbing ever since, until today the Mac
has enough presence in the US market that the platform is once again well
supported by software and hardware vendors.

This time around, with the battle between iOS and Android, Apple is not as
likely to drop the ball, like they did in the late 80s, early 90s. The end
result, in my opinion, will be a market with two dominant platforms. Over time
I would expect Android to become the budget choice with Apple picking off the
high margin segment of the market. Indeed, this is the current market
configuration that we see in the PC / Mac market.

Of course, the day is coming when Steve Jobs will no longer be at the helm of
Apple. I would hope that the board has understood the lesson from the first
Jobs-less period, by choosing a successor that understands the primacy of
design for Apple.

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nonane
Where is the hardware angle in this? One of the reasons that Macs lost the
battle was because they couldn't compete with the latest and greatest hardware
that that Intel churned out. Through most of the 90s Apple stuck with
unpowered hardware while being clobbered by Dell and HP's prices (due to
higher volumes and probably better supply chain management). This is no longer
the case - in fact, because of Apple's massive iOS device volumes they can
probably beat the bigger manufacturers on price this time around.

All they need to do is keep up with the hardware trends and keep refreshing
their product line. So far they've done this (retina, dual core on iPad 2,
cameras etc).

So, it's not like the old Win vs Mac battle since the hardware playing field
is almost neutral (or perhaps there is a slight Apple advantage here).

~~~
theclay
So basically, all Mac has to do is never fall behind in any way to the rest of
the world. I think back to the days of my Apple IIGS.

It was awesome. It showed the way. And then the clones destroyed it.

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Apocryphon
That's because Android vs. iOS is really Linux vs. BSD!

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shareme
Louis forgot that there were other non-windows and on-mac desktop OSes
hardware during the MAC vs Win wars in his debating points which contradict
his points..

what ones?

Amiga BeOS plus several others

