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AT&T Sidestepping Google, Eyes Symbian
molotovjester writes "In what is surely going to be a slap in the face of Apple, AT&T is eyeballing the Symbian platform as a smart-phone OS for an army of new handsets it expects will make up the majority of the market by 2014. Is this move too little, too late compared to Google's Android? Will Apple open up its iPhone platform, or will dreams of electric sheep be dreamed up by the majority of cell phone users? I wrote an analysis of the industry players as of mid-November, but it will be interesting to see what AT&T does and how it changes the mobile ecosystem."
A slap in the face? Come on. Apple's not going to care. There will always be other smartphones out there. Apple wouldn't have any desire for their OS to run on other phones. Their plan is to try to get THEIR product to dominate the market.
When will people stop expecting Apple to "open up" their products? It will never happen.
I honestly don't expect Apple to care too much.
Who stands more to lose: Apple because AT&T is running another phone in addition to the iPhone, or AT&T because Apple decides to let other carriers have the iPhone.
Which gives Apple the bigger market share?
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I RTFA, and it seems to me AT&T is looking for a common operating system for their "base" or cheaper phones. This would serve as a replacement for all of the Java crap that's out there now. They also further state that they see Apple as a third party provider using their network services. This has the potential to be the best situation of all. If AT&T opens their network to third party devices, not just Apple/RIM/Windows Mobile, we could see all manner of innovation in the near future.
This is in no way a slap in the face of Apple. If anything it's a validation of Apple's current iPhone model. (That is, if you ignore subsidies and rebates)
I don't think this is a slap in the face of Apple. AT&T needs to hedge its bets - the iPhone exclusivity deal isn't forever, it's until 2010. And when the contract expires, if Apple goes multi carrier or drops AT&T entirely, then AT&T better have the backup plan well in the works. And given that it's almost 2009, it's probably a good idea to get the backup plan done now.
Well, as often the /. tagline is rather full of hyperpole. FTA:
'Seth Bloom, an AT&T spokesperson, confirmed to Ars Technica that the company "has no plans to standardize on one platform for our smart devices. But we have said that we see potential benefit in standardizing our low-end devices on a single mobile OS, though we have not finalized our plans to do so." '
So, you'll get probably get a crippled/slow device with the ability to expensively download crap 'approved' by AT&T. I'll pass.
"In what is surely going to be a slap in the face of Apple"? Are you serious?
You can't seriously believe that Apple expected AT&T to stop selling every other variety of phone in existence once they picked up the iPhone. Controlling though he may be, I seriously doubt Steve Jobs is lying awake at night saying, "Those bastards! How dare they sell other phones!" Obviously AT&T was going to keep selling other kinds of phones, including Symbian phones, that's just common sense. But then, when there's a chance to bash Apple on Slashdot, common sense does seem to go out the window, doesn't it?
And as for any moves on Apple's part being "too little, too late", the sales numbers hardly bear that out at this point. Last I checked, the iPhone was outsold all of RIM's devices put together last fiscal quarter. Obviously this is going to fluctuate as time goes on, I hardly think that demonstrates widespread pent-up demand for a FOSS mobile operating system. When you spend all your days on Slashdot, it's hard to notice, but believe it or not, not everyone gives a damn.
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We have a winner. AT&T stands to lose a hell of a lot more if Apple brings the iPhone to other carriers than Apple has to lose if AT&T offers other smart phones that run other OS's. AT&T's move is smart. Not everybody wants an iPhone so you might as well offer other smart phones. It would be suicide not to. I doubt Apple cares. Last time I checked the iPhone is doing pretty damn well and Apple isn't the kind of company that wants every person on the planet to buy it's stuff. They realize that there is a certain group of people willing to pay more for their products and they've done pretty well for themselves catering to that market.
Android is going nowhere, at least in the short term. That's my educated opinion, as I was involved with it (hence the anonymous post). It's a side project for Google, and Google has been tightening up over the last few months. Most of the people working on android were contract workers (and have seen their contracts cancelled) or have been reassigned to other projects. Sure, it's open source and the community can support it, but it relies on binary blobs from handset providers and testing on green hardware. I hope it doesn't stagnate and die, but at this point, it looks like it might.