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Apple vs. Google, Who Will Control the iPhone?
Pieroxy writes "Theiphoneblog carries a nice article on the reason Apple rejected the Google Voice application even though it doesn't violate any terms and services. The article goes in depth over the issue of controlling the hardware (Apple) vs. controlling the software (Google & Apple so far) and how Apple doesn't want Google to take over a critical part of its phone. Just like Google is going into the OS business to make sure it never gets cut out, Apple is also building a huge data center to — they guess — take over some online cloud computing business of their own and be less dependent on Google for these services."
the MS of the phone era.
Make the software and see an internet portal become the end user experience.
Or they could just have a VOIP deal
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8217871.stm
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Daring Fireball had a good piece on this:
Googleâ(TM)s dependence on hardware and carrier partners puts the final product out of their control â" and into the control of companies whose histories have shown them to be incompetent at design and hostile to users.
Iâ(TM)d be happy to be proven wrong, but my hunch is that the only way weâ(TM)ll see an iPhone-caliber Android phone is if Google does what theyâ(TM)ve said theyâ(TM)re not going to do, which is to design and ship their own reference model âoegPhoneâ. That doesnâ(TM)t mean Android wonâ(TM)t still be successful in some sense if it remains on its current course, but that I donâ(TM)t expect it to be successful in the âoeholy shit is this awesome!â sense that the iPhone is.
http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/the_android_opportunity
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Get with Google and make the iPhone completely run on Google Voice VoIP.
Make it carrier-agnostic (duh) and make it data-only.
The iPhone would become a data only device that would have VoIP built right into the device.
It would work an any network and could even change networks with impunity.
Also, it *should* be cheaper since you're not paying for tradition phone/voicemail/SMS.
I would think a rising tide lifts all boats: Apple says it's a hardware company, so they produce the best hardware and the best interface to said hardware (OSX and the iPhone variant), period. Make the hardware absolutely bulletproof, a dream to program for, and sit back and let the $$$ roll in.
If Google come up with software that allows me to make 60-way calls while also making toast and watering the garden, then there should be no reason for Apple to stop them; "we made the best hardware and the best interface to that hardware around. That's all we care about. Go for it!"
In other words, why is there a problem in the first place? Does Apple really make enough additional money in its contracts with at&t et al to justify meddling in software developers' affairs? I own a Mac, I run OS X, and it gives me everything I want to start with. They've done their job, so now I can install the software I want to use to actually get things done, and go about my business. Why does it have to be different with the iPhone?
I personally believe the app store is a great idea insofar as it's a single place to go for everything; it was a total nightmare to find JavaMe apps for my Razr and even worse trying to get them installed. That said, I also totally disagree with Apple's heavy-handed approach; if you don't want questionable apps, don't install them, and if they turn out to be not what they purported to be, then review them out of existence.
In other words, leave me the hell alone to make my own damn choices about apps I want to run. Let Google write whatever they want; if it works for me I'll use it. If it doesn't, I won't. But let me choose for myself.
Google is going to be the Wal-Mart of the industry - both on services (trying to get everyone to rely on them instead of having their own IT organizations) and on information (the ridiculous, likely-treaty-violating WGA deal, for example), etc. Relying on content from web sites to deliver ads, but then sharing little of the revenue, etc.
They haven't figured out how to be a "good parasite" yet - but few have noticed, because they're just becoming big enough to kill the ecosystem they're relying on. Trust me - Google is Wal-Mart. And as much as I really don't care for Apple, they'd be smart to keep Google at arms length.
Apple DOESN'T want to. They are in a nice spot right now - they can sell fewer product, but at higher margins than the rest of the industry. They don't care that their sales volume is smaller, or their marketshare is 1/10th of their competitor. Once you start lusting after more people, it becomes a race to the bottom. It's why Apple has no computer to compete against the low-end PCs, why the mid-range Apples don't have features enthusiasts want (i.e., expandability), etc. It gets harder to meet the needs of more diverse set of people, and marginal costs to support the next customer rise faster than revenue gained from those extra customers.
The iPod is an irregularity, and while a money maker, you can tell Apple's not really liking having to sell a whole range of iPods - the line's pretty much stagnated except for the Touch. The only thing keeping them up there is that their competitors are equally stuck - unable to out-iPod the iPod.
This cannot be understated. The computer industry experienced exponential growth once it became open. It all started the day Compaq produced the first IBM PC clone. That day will only come for phones/PDAs when people can use any phone, with software from any company or individual, with any telephone service provider.
The cellphone industry already has seen this. 10 years ago, the cellphone population was nowhere near where it is now. Maybe 20 years ago if we include the rest of the world. Cellphones are everywhere. Nokia makes the vast majority of the phones sold, and thus, the vast majority of the phones sold can also run Java applets. There's very little growth left - those who want "a phone" have the low end (which is increasingly including stuff like cameras, mp3 players and such). Those who want an awesome email platform have the millions of Blackberry models out there. Those who want to surf the web have tons of phones that run WebKit. All Apple brought to the table was innovation - the only way to break into a crowded market. Even the iPhone's low marketshare makes Apple happy - they command a good chunk of industry revenues.
And we won't see open hardware and open OS distributions anytime soon - phones are embedded devices and highly customized to their hardware. Take a look at DD-WRT for open hardware and open OS, and see how many different binaries you need to support all those routers. And that's just because they all are based off similar hardware designs, but still there's no "install this software package and it'll configure itself" distribution.
As for the "any service provider" - we're already there. It's called GSM (or UMTS/LTE... 3GPP anyhow). Buy an unlocked phone. Buy a SIM card. Put latter into former. Make calls. Go to another country. Buy a new SIM card. Replace existing SIM. Make calls.
Right track, wrong analogy.
Which sells more cars? The latest and most bleeding edge engine, or the curves and colours of the body? The accuracy of the speedometer, or the layout of the dashboard? The effectiveness of the airbags, or the fact the seats are heated? The range on a single tank of gas, or the ipod interface to the radio?
The fact is that though we really *should* care more about the former, society generally seems to care more about the latter. We assume the former works, so all advancement is assumed in the latter. We assume the basics (e.g., hardware) are all covered and are perfect, and it's only software that has the problems (or, in the car analogy above, the niceties and extras that are optional and thus distinguishing between vehicles).
What Apple showed was that our old cell phone hardware could be shown as drastically out of date. What they're getting hurt by is the apps: everyone is just assuming their hardware now. Its value has been commoditised, even if the price tag hasn't been. Google, RIM, and any other competitors in this space are out to show that the hardware really is commodity. Google just has an interesting take on that tactic: by providing a user-interface that is phone-independant, they really are making the hardware commodity.
I wish. For one thing it sets up the permissions wrong. Another is that it either formats partitions if you didn't tell it to or it refuses to mount them if you didn't choose to format them. Then there's setting up the storage - I understand LVM but I have no idea what "storage groups" are even supposed to be? Directories? Something like logical volumes? To add insult to injury the default partitioning recipe puts your media where it will be lost if you upgrade. Everyone agrees this is wrong but it's been like that for a year and at least one major version.
Mythbuntu is a big disappointment. I'm going to give Mythtv one last go as a separate install and then sod it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."