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Why the Google Android Phone Isn't Taking Off
Hugh Pickens writes "Farhad Manjoo writes in Slate that while the iPhone commands nearly 14 percent of smartphone sales and BlackBerry about 21 percent, Android has only 3 percent. And even though Android is far friendlier to developers, it has failed to attract anywhere near the number of apps now clogging the iPhone. Manjoo writes that Google went wrong by giving handset manufacturers and carriers too much control over the design and marketing of Android phones so there is no idealized 'Google phone' — instead, Android devices get names like the T-Mobile G1 or the myTouch 3G, and each is marketed separately and comes with its own distinct capabilities and shortcomings. 'Outside handset manufacturers lack ambition — -none of them even seems to be trying to match the capabilities of the iPhone, let alone to knock us down with features that far surpass those of Apple's device,' writes Manjoo. 'A smart handset manufacturer could build a top-of-the-line Android device that outshines Apple's phone in at least a few areas — better battery life, a much better Web browser, a brighter or bigger screen, faster or more functional controls... something that might help Android inspire gadget lust. But so far, that's not happening.' John Gruber echoes this advice and adds this advice to Android manufacturers: 'If Apple is BMW, you can be Porsche.'"
The G1 and myTouch are nice, unfortunately they're on T-Mobile, which is nice but not nice everywhere. If T-Mobile worked in my area I would certainly try them out, at least.
There's nothing, as far as I know, in any of the existing arrangements stopping Google from co-branding a phone with a manufacturer that's blessed as "the Google [whatever]". A Google-branded phone would probably be a stronger player--- moreso than a T-Mobile-branded phone that in the explanatory text tells you about how it runs Google Android.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Part of the lack of good apps is the lack of solid documentation and examples. I spent weeks learning the API, but anytime I wanted to do something more meaningful that display stuff on the screen, I would get bogged down trying to figure out how to do it.
I'm not a newbie, I started programming computers back in the eighties (Z80 and 6502 assembler) so I know my way around, but the documentation is horrible, sometimes you think you got it all figured out and it turns out is an earlier / later version of the API, which doesn't quite work that way anyway.
Also, for those of us outside the U.S., it's hard to get a real phone to play with, even when Google gave thousands aways at Google I/O, you can't get one internationally at a reduced price.(At least you couldn't last time I checked.)
I gave up and decided to come back when there was some organization to the docs and some real support for independent developers
Having said all that, I believe the platform will take off and do very well; it is simply too young.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
I concur 100%. When it came to ditching my turdburger iPhone 3G, the thing that kept me from considering the Android phones was that the hardware was even sorrier than the 3G was. Someone ought to take HTC by the shoulders and shake them until they start putting batteries into their phones. I've got a feeling Samsung will come out with an Android phone worth buying at some point soon, though.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
I joined the dev programs so I could buy a completely unlocked phone. Honestly Google should have told carriers to stuff it and sold the GooglePhone completely unlocked.
Market the googlephone as well. Anyone seeing mine says "what is that?" nobody knows about them because apple out marketed everyone, and google is sitting there going, buy my stuff please? pretty please?
I'll give you a sucker, it's Pina Colada....
It's an example of lets not market this thing and let's laso make it very un-shiny.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I spent several months at a startup where we were going to make $$profit by writing and selling Android applications. The problem is that the phones are, well, awful. The iPhone has set the standard, and things like the G1 are simply uninspiring by comparison. We would try to raise money, and in a room full of tech-savvy investors, most people have iPhones. We would pass around the G1 so they could see our app. Bottom line, they were not interested in investing money in a product that ran on a phone that was ugly.
Consequently I now write SQL for a living and get paid by the hour.
Android has done some great things. The control the user can have, the security model, the interaction between apps are all well thought out. One of these days it's going to be significant. Probably right after Linux is ready for the desktop.
And even though Android is far friendlier to developers, it has failed to attract anywhere near the number of apps now clogging the iPhone.
I hear people parroting the first part of that statement, invariably without any supporting evidence. Please explain - I'm asking this seriously - why Android is "far friendlier to developers". If the apps aren't being developed, I'd argue that's at least one piece of evidence running counter to that assumption. The iPhone (and iPod Touch) seemed to have a significant number of third-party apps already available at launch, so marketshare can't explain it all away. Besides, as people love saying here, the iPhone's market share is not really all that big compared to some others (no, you can't have it both ways).
So is Android actually friendlier to developers, or is it just the old "it's on Linux and Open Source, so it contains the maximum degree of friendliness possible no matter how much a pain in the butt it is to use"?
#DeleteChrome
Even though there are a lot of Android handsets out they are all for... T-Mobile. Now, while T-Mobile is great for talking and texting and they have decent coverage and are GSM they have a fatal flaw, a lack of a 3G network. Ok, in larger cities you can get 3G just fine, but in a medium sized town? No 3G, AT&T has 3G there on the other hand. Similarly, they could have made the phones unlocked so you could use it on a different network, however they didn't. While AT&T is no saint when it comes to cell networks, they do have pretty good 3G coverage, T-Mobile, while improving just isn't there yet. Can't say anything about Sprint or Verizon as I haven't used either (Verizon seems to neuter -all- their phones to the point of being unusable and Sprint seems to be expensive).
Also, there needs to be a common third-party to buy their cell phones from, perhaps a Google store?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I would be more inclined to ditch my Windows Mobile for Android if MS/Open Office type apps were free, or even if there were full Google Docs support... the open development environment and physical keyboard option kick iPhone's ass for my purposes.
Signed up right away, got my Dev Phone 1 and then came the news that pretty much knocked most of the wind out of my sales when it came to development: Google announced that they were requiring developers to deal with collecting sales tax. I'd imagine that I'm not the only person wanting to write a few small apps in hopes of making a little extra income that was completely put off by the decision.
Google went wrong by giving handset manufacturers and carriers too much control over the design and marketing of Android phones so there is no idealized 'Google phone'
So.. It's like the Linux of phones?
I find the Android ui to be kind of unpolished. It looks like something from several years ago. I know it sounds nitpicky, but it just doesn't have that "I want to use this" vibe.
Plus, how is Android more developer-friendly? The iPhone and Windows Mobile have nice SDKs, big communities, tons of code around, etc.
No-one is selling the darn things (I've yet to see one in a store/cell phone kiosk). That could be part of the problem up here at least. If anyone knows where I can get one (in western Canada) please let me know, I'd love to be proven wrong.
Even T-mobile affiliates like iWireless (in Iowa) don't offer the G1 or myTouch. Google needs to stop relying on T-mobile and get Android phones as offerings from all national carriers. I'd love to get an android phone to replace my current sub-par MS 6.1 based HTC smartphone. Time to start flexing some muscle google!
Wow, just stunning. If the lack of an idealized phone were the problem, WinMo wouldn't have anywhere near the marketshare it has. For Android to take over, one simple thing needs to happen - a wider selection of Android phones on a wider selection of providers, at a wide selection of price points.
I imagine that Google will have a much more lenient application 'store' or method of downloading applications to your phone. As Apple recently blocked Google's Talk application, I doubt Android would do this.
Given Google's history, their record is pretty developer friendly:
While it might not hold much weight for a business to say it but there is also 'do no evil'.
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
Whiners.
All it takes to win droves over to a single Android phone is One Killer App that you cannot get anywhere else. It has to be an idea so radical that its specific implementation can be patented and licensed in a proprietary manner because it requires the use of extensive parallel back-end processing for each front-end client. In addition to that, it requires a sort of database that is unique to each client--in every way except for the raw materials used to create its shape. It must have an ongoing data storage requirement for each customer, one that grows absolutely forever until that client stops being a customer and then all that constructed database structure is gone.
It takes a killer app that changes the game so much, one that makes your world different because it makes you a better human being--for whatever purpose you have in mind. This app is something that will not be as useful on the first day you get it as it will be years from then, when your usage patterns are in built to the system.
This thing I'm describing is complex, it has a lot of moving parts, a lot of parallel, asynchronous processing. Just building the thing in all its glory has been an ongoing project for years, with whole half years having been devoted to subsystems. I have a lot of time invested in what I've already done, for example. It's in Java because I didn't want to worry about the language, I wanted to worry about the architecture. I've been doing Java for about 13 years so I really can think in it, pardoning the Bruce Eckels echo.
Do I want to try to replicate all the client code in this new curiosity, Objective C? Do I want to put my energy into learning how Objective C compares to C or C++, or is my creativity better spent completing this idea in Java-friendly Android, knowing that all it will take is something really cool that people are talking about and using and that they want assurances from the company that this data structure they've built in it is safe and backed up.
The platform is trivial. The App is King. Long Live The Killer App.
Where is the market? AT&T has the iPhone, the phone. The one everyone wants to beat.
Sprint has the Pre. It's a pretty decent phone with a few build quality issues. Once Palm gets a brain and starts letting apps come out, it could be pretty good.
Verizon has... who knows. Standard Blackberries?
And then there is little T-Mobile with.. Blackberries.
I don't remember seeing many (any?) ads for the G1. I don't remember anyone talking about it except release day calling it "the google phone" when it's not Googly in any way. Basically, not many people care, because I don't think many people know about it. My boss has one, and it's quite nice. But it has no mindshare.
Why should it? It doesn't have an amazing app store (like the iPhone). It doesn't have sexy hardware (like the iPhone or many imitators). It doesn't have an amazingly cheap price. There is nothing to stand out about it other than running "google OS". And since Android doesn't have a reputation yet, that doesn't sell phones.
Great apps would help, but people won't build those until the thing is more popular. Better hardware would help a little so it doesn't look so blocky (the G2 should help here).
Microsoft has this same problem. When Apple wants the hardware to do something, it builds it. When Microsoft wants it, they push and prod and within a few years it happens. Dell (et all) don't make sexy computers, or at least didn't start until after years of Apple taking the "good looking" market.
Android could be something great, even if it takes the "low end smartphone" market. But it could take years to get there, and companies may not be willing to wait that long. If Google had taken some of the risk and co-developed a phone (a Honda or Acura to Apple's BMW, instead of the Ford Focus we got) Android could be in a better spot.
But the Pre is the weakest right now, in my eyes. They've had months and released almost no apps. You know what they just released in the last week or two? Out of the 4 or 5 apps, two were to help people with Jewish observances. Not exactly "phone moving" applications. Floodgates may not open until Christmas or later, and without some lower-level stuff there might not be good games. Some strong funded development in apps and some marketing could really help Android. More phones certainly would.
The question is, will this be the next DOS/Windows (good enough, builds up to dominance), or OS/2 (better than the common, but never achieves critical mass and becomes irrelevant)?
How about a series of ads showing how easy it is to navigate/use the phone, compared to the nightmare of a UI that Blackberries use? Aim for that market. Aim for consumers (not necessarily businesses) who want a smartphone, but don't want and iPod.
Of course, I wouldn't want to fight against a $99 iPhone. The only reason that thing hasn't destroyed the market is it's tied to AT&T.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I'd like to get an Android phone, but AT&T doesn't seem to offer one yet. T-Mobile does, but they don't do so well with coverage where I need it. I actually AM in the market for a new Smart Phone to replace a really old Windows Mobile device - and was considering both iPhone and Android as the front runners. However, after seeing how apple won't let me run what I want (and being a fairly new Google Voice user) I would much rather go with an Android. I hear they are supposed to have a bunch more Android phones on the market by the end of the year. I hope that AT&T will offer some decent ones, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
We have known this for ages and we still act as if this is somehow surprising?
Most Apple users believe they are somehow better than everyone else and that they are somehow elite because they own an Apple product. -1 Troll me if you like, but there are many people who truly believe that and one classic twitter posting complaining about the reduction in prices of Apple notebook computers really expresses what everyone else is afraid to admit -- that buying a particular brand of anything somehow says something about who they are. People buying Harley Davidson motorcycles for weekend rides or having their bikes transported on trailers to motorcycle rallies like Sturgis somehow makes them a member of a biker's culture? It's not true. Slapping a popular label on your ass does not make anyone cooler or better, and yet people still persist in believing so and why?
The power of marketing influence is great! But these Jedi mind tricks only work on the weak minded.
Phones are social objects; they live and die on cultural perception, on our collective assessment of what carrying them can do for our style.
or so the article tells me. Huh? My main phone (a Casio, for Japan) lives and dies on its battery. It's reliable and legible and the payment plan makes it cheaper than most of the alternatives. It's about three years old, making it half the age of my other phone (Sony Eriksson, for Britain). So I'm happy with it, though you're welcome to enjoy your own, very different phone.
Pace Farhad Manjoo but I really couldn't give a bowel movement about my "style" (if any) and unless you're an available and unusually alluring specimen of the opposite sex I don't care what you think of it either.
Consider using your old phone and doing less to accelerate the degradation of the planet.
We've spent a lot of the past 6 months optimizing a mobile version of our website & ecommerce systems as well as developing native apps for the iPhone and Blackberry. I go around and test on anyone with a smartphone I see. And I've yet to meet a single person with a G1 or MyTouch.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Tethering, VOIP, and Google Voice alone would far outpace the iPhones selection of farts and beer glass pouring apps.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'm so sick of people making number comparisons between similar technologies that were released sometimes YEARS earlier than the others.
Just waiting for the HTC Hero to hit the US on a carrier larger then t-mobile! (rumor dates are Oct 11th on Sprint...released in Europe in June) This phone seems to be in the same league as the iPhone and may help increase Android's popularity.
I'll tell you why I desperately want an Android phone, but won't buy one. It's because the carriers have locked-down what is supposed to be a "free, open source, and fully customizable mobile platform". If I get one that is unlocked through other means, it is prohibitively expensive and I'm pretty sure my carrier would still find a way to screw me.
For the most part, I consider the HTC Hero the first Android phone worth owning because it looks pleasing to use. That's what the iPhone was successful. The G1 looks like a god awful brick and the myTouch 3G is only a slight improvement on that. People buy phones to make a statement, and just wanting to support open source doesn't get a lot of "normal" people onto the platform. I think Android will change for the better once Sprint gets the HTC Hero on it's network.
...but I wasn't about to change services just to get one. I have AT&T Wireless, and have been in the market for several years now for an upgrade. I've waited and waited for an Android phone to become available, but nothing ever came my way. So, I've settled for a Nokia E71x, which isn't my ideal phone, but it certainly beats the vaporware that is Android on AT&T Wireless.
The article and the study looks at smartphones. There is a lot of people that just wants a nice phone that they can call other people with. A lot of these people also wants to take pictures or listen to music on their phone. Most of these people do not want to install third party applications on their phones. These handsets are much cheaper to buy and sells in much greater numbers. Some of these phones have the capabilities of what was really expensive phones a couple of years ago. So they need a shiny OS driving them.
If Google wanted to copy what Apple has been doing they could start selling a clone - the gPhone. But is Google really a hardware company? No, not really. As I understand it Google is trying to get Android to be the OS that other companies will want as the OS in their phones. Not Google's phones but their phones. In order to make that happen they have to give up total control.
Apple will probably be able to continue selling sexy expensive phones and make a great profit doing so. I think Google wants Android to be the OS that powers the rest of market. Look out Symbian.
I was interested in a new smart phone and did a comparison between the MyTouch and the iPhone by playing around with each for about 15 minutes in a store. I wanted to like the MyTouch, but overall the iPhone experience was much nicer when playing with all the Apps. But one thing that really got me (and my older eyes) was that the iPhones screen (and hence icons) were much larger than the MyTouch - so it was a no brainer if I wanted to be able to see things on the phone. However in the end I still couldn't justify the cost of a 3GS for the way I use a phone.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
And for me, it's far better than an iPhone would ever be. Why, because it syncs to my Google Apps for your domain account, so I can access emails on my phone in a very efficient manner, because I have an app which throws texts back the other way so I can read them on my PC, because it does everything I want from a phone extremely well, and more. Oh, and a qwerty keyboard helps a lot too.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
If developer friendliness or freedom is the primary advantage of android, then someone needs to prove it by developing and marketing a useful and exciting app that can't exist on other mobile platforms due to their developer restrictions. That someone has to be Google, because nobody else is going to take the risk of putting in the time and effort for a platform with such a small user base.
HTC's Dream and Magic are selling better then expected.
It was never Google's or HTC's plan to take the market by storm, they intended to bleed Android in slowly rather then try to shove it at everyone at once a la Apple.
The Android market growth is slow, but steady. Comparing Google Android to Apple iphone is like comparing the tortoise to the hare. Android has only been released for a bit over 9 months, Google is following its standard MO, release slowly and improve just like it does with all of its services (Gmail for example). Google is simply not rushing to market. In the 9 months that Android has been released we've had two updates 1.1 and 1.5 (which added a heap of functionality).
Android will continue to grow as more handsets are released for it. It's a fair point that the HTC hardware could be better (it's not that bad either) but compared with the gen 1 iphone the gen 1 Android phone (HTC Dream) is far superior and HTC failure and DOA rate is far lower then that of Apple (this is why HTC phones are so expensive). Android is a good OS and it's usage will continue to grow. HTC have released their third phone (HTC Hero), just not in the states, Motarola have 2 on the way ("Sholes" and "Morrison") and Sony has 1 (Xpeira "Rachel") which looks to be the best HW yet for Android. After 5 minutes of using my android phone I realised that it wasn't competing with the Iphone, Google is targeting WinMo and has every chance of supplanting WinMo if development continues at it's current breakneck pace.
As for a "killer app", it's called flash and is coming in Donut.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
A big reason, in fact the only reason, that I went with t-mobile was for UMA calling. I live in a bad reception area regardless of carrier. I'd love to purchase an Android based phone... if you know... I could actually use it.
Well, you don't have to pay Apple money to develop for Android, and you don't have to get Apple's permission to distribute your app to users.
Those are nice factors worth considering but you didn't really answer the question. Is it true that "Android is far friendlier to developers"? I don't actually know the answer and don't pretend to know. I've certainly seen no compelling evidence that Android actually is meaningfully friendlier (whatever that means) or better meets the needs/desires of developers. It might be but the evidence seems to be lacking.
I love my G1 but the T-Mobile network is absolutely atrocious. The hardware is great, the software is coming along just fine, but it's shackled to the worst of the big carriers. Android is a foxy mistress shackled to a homely girlfriend and there's no wingman in sight.
Moto's releasing a couple Android phones (Sholes on VZW and Morrison on T-M) by the end of the year. The "leaked" photos don't look abortions, fwiw.
This is an easy one.
The only person to ever see my phone and know what it was just happened to be another G1 owner. Not another soul knew in nearly a year now. Instead I was met with, "What is that?"
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Let's wait until the end of the year to declare Android dead. After all, there are (as far as I know) only three Android phones being sold in the U.S. right now, with far more announced for sale before the end of the year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_android#Forthcoming
Also, the U.S. isn't the only market for mobile phones. There's also Europe and the Far East.
HTC, the seller of 80% of Windows Mobile phones, was the first provider to start selling Android phones.
What's likely to happen is that, since it's free, Android will supplant Windows Mobile, which Microsoft charges for.
This space left intentionally blank.
In the US, only T-mobile (known for the worse connection anywhere) offers an android phone. Moreover, the phone they offer costs as much to the client as the iPhone, while feeling, looking and acting cheaper. Bad starting point. Once a decent network offers a decent phone competition can start.
sam
Reading the comments I got the feeling I was reading a 9 months old article, I actually went to check the date on comments a few times.
Might I remind you that Android handsets have been released around the world, not only in the USA.
In France for instance, the HTCMagic (the G2 I believe) had advertisement in the metro and was labeled as a Google Phone (it's the Android name that doesn't pushed get out there, not the Google name). In Australia there are also ads for the same phone in phone shops.
Also, they are about 4 phones available right now running android (HTCDream, Magic, Hero and Samsung Galaxy).
Always going back to the T Mobile G1 is a little backwards looking and sort of like complaining about how the iPhone 1 doesn't have 3G.
The HTC Hero has an entirely revamped UI for instance, so things are also evolving outside the hood as well as under (even if the Hero's hardware admittedly isn't good enough and not future-proof).
So although I agree that Android lacks a killer app and the I want one factor that the iPhone has, saying that Android has problems because T Mobile's network sucks is really USA-centric.
From the different reports we've seen, the Magic has sold a million units since it was released in May. Now we're nowhere near iPhone numbers, but it isn't exactly a failure commercially speaking.
Considering another 15 or so phones running Android should come out before the end of the year (probably quite a few Samsungs, at least one Sony-Ericsson and some more HTCs), Android is gearing up.
I'm not saying it doesn't need a whole lot more marketing, a lot more see how easy it is to do this on Android type ads on TV to explain to non tech-savvy people why it's good, better form factors and gadget lust or some unified branding to avoid having a same phone have 5 different names, but it's nowhere near the catastrophe some seem to see it as. As someone said, it's going to gain momentum slowly, not become the next big thing overnight.
No wit here.
The Android just came out.
The title was supposed to be Android [not equal] T Mobile.
Also, my french quotes were stripped.
What's up with "unusual" characters Slashdot ?
No wit here.
They need a great phone ready when verizon upgrades their network to 4g. refuse to let verizon cripple the phone. A phone better than the iphone, that doesnt drop calls, on a network that actually has a service area would eat market share pretty fast. plus their are a lot of people tied to verizon for network coverage that would kill for a full feature, non crippled smartphone, and would pay any amount to get one.
Most Apple users believe they are somehow better than everyone else and that they are somehow elite because they own an Apple product.
You know what? I've never met an Apple user like that. All the people I know who use macs are very friendly. Most have a lot of experience with Windows too, out of necessity at work. They know the good and the bad of each.
So who are the people who really think they are better than anyone else? To a man, I'd have to say the Apple Haters. They are always posting missives like yours, deriding people for falling under some kind of "marketing spell" because there's just no way they could simply find the devices useful, right? These people thus broadcast loud and clear that they are superior to you, the weak minded Apple user, because they have the strength of will to keep doing what they have always done!
So stay in that shiny rut sir, and admire the many mirrors around you... you seem too far gone to be able to survive outside your chamber of self-admiration.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In Australia if you want an Android phone you have to hunt for it. Currently the dominant player Telstra does not carry one and they are the only provider with significant coverage outside cities. While all the Telco's flood the marketing channels with deals and glossies on other touch screen and smart phones, I do not recall one such promo for an Android phone. The news and marketing for Android phones are limited to IT related media.
It will be interesting to see how Samsung handle the release of the Galaxy in Australia next month.
"One of these days it's going to be significant. Probably right after Linux is ready for the desktop."
Are you actually that clueless?
I find it impossible for someone to actually be posting in a story about cellphones, claiming to actually have worked at a company focused on cellphones, and yet...is pretending to be ignorant that
THE ENTIRE CELLPHONE MARKET is rapidly standardizing on Android.
Every damn cellphone manufacture in the world other than Apple, Palm, and Blackberry are coming out with Android based phones.
Android is so popular with hardware manufactures it is spreading out into media devices, netbooks, sub-netbook devices, etc.
Companies like Motorola have created a 200 person team dedicated to...you guessed it...Android.
Google's Android has effectively wiped Windows Mobile right out of the market and taken its place as the default cellphone OS.
So, yeah, nice story about the startup. Has absolutely nothing to do with the reality that Android isn't just a success. It's an astonishing success to have taken over so quickly.
Why is parent modded flamebait?
Look, it's a tradeoff. If you think the loosely-documented Android is an easier development environment than the fastidiously-documented and streamlined Cocoa Touch environment, you're probably deluding yourself and modding people down out of insecurity. However, when it comes to publishing, the reverse is true -- Make an Android app that Google doesn't like and you'll probably have a lot better chance of it getting into users' hands than if you make an iPhone app Apple doesn't like.
Both can be improved. Google can move toward a consolidation of developer documentation and resources, and Apple can loosen up about its functionality prohibitions.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
I have no interest in the android because it's not open enough for my liking. If I wanted an iPhone, I would have gone out ant gotten an iPhone.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I imagine that Google will have a much more lenient application 'store' or method of downloading applications to your phone.
You can imagine what you like, but they have also blocked some apps. Of course GV is not going to be one of them...
Of course anyone can download and install your app on Android - so you have the freedom to be ignored.
At least with the iPhone there is a viable alternate channel for sales, Cydia - totally outside the realm of Apple's control, the Diagon Alley of apps. They claim over a million devices jailbroken, which places the total size of the market near the viable Android market!
Some people claim Jailbreaking does not count because it's "illegal" or "is not shipped with the phone" or all sorts of other reasons that basically amount to bunk. Any advanced user is going to do things to a computer that were not included in the box. Similarly advanced users can easily jailbreak and thus run all those cool apps Apple would not allow, and at this point it's so simple I wouldn't even balk at recommending it to less technical user if there was a Cydia app compelling enough for what they wanted to do.
As for it being "illegal", come on. It's not even at level of jaywalking it terms of moral questionability and what are they going to write a ticket for? Dangerously wild consumption of mobile resources?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Really? As opposed to Apple's completely open, won't ever delete your app for any reason AppStore. No, it's pretty obvious to anyone with half a clue that the iPhone's success is due in no small part to Apple's marketing. Sad but true, decent (even superior) competing products won't gain market share for the simple fact that people can be brainwashed (ie, advertised to).
Nathan's blog
The iPhone and the Blackberry are the two phones that every single other manufacture seeks to emulate. They set the gold standard for cell phone interfaces.
I don't know of a *single* person in my circle of friends who owns one. I dont know a single person who has ever mentioned wanting them, thinking about them, or seen them. In fact, outside of slashdot, I've never really heard about the Android. Pretty popular indeed.
Developer Friendly? Not, I spent some time a few months ago trying to port one of my games to the G1. The game requires some fairly heavy physics, it runs
blistering fast on the the iphone. The G1 however just is not up to the task, face it the IPhone is just a much better performing device. When it comes
to squeezing performance out of these tiny devices get java out of my way, I need to be able to program against the metal.
Got Code?
You can't make an android application because all the phones are different. They have different screen sizes, different input devices, and different processing power. So to develop an app for it you have to go to lowest common denominator to make an android app, otherwise it's an app for specific phones.
But the biggest reason why Android is going to thrive is no approval process, if Apple had a decent, sane process it wouldn't be as big of a deal, but with the headaches of the app store I can see the lack of that being the killer feature for Android developers.
That's great for developers.
But what about users?
Everyone can point at Apple app store acceptance mishaps. But you know what? They are also actually catching stuff, en masse, that really should ship - crashing bugs, UI bugs where the screen goes wonky, etc.
Yes they block some stuff us technical folk find annoying for philosophical reasons we consider absurd. But the apps that are there are better for being held to even some minimal level of quality.
What about the guy recently banned from the Apple store for having 900 apps that were basically typosquatting kinds of applications? Is the Android world really better off for letting him clutter the store with hundreds of such apps, or as many as he cares to make?
Back to the technical users, at least we have an outlet - either get a developer account and then write what you want to run on the phone (or get source from elsewhere to do so), or simply jailbreak the thing and be done with limits if the wall Apple is driving you up is too high.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The reason I don't have an Android is a) I've got a year left on my contract and b) my carrier doesn't offer one.
Just wait a year or three.
Tethering, VOIP, and Google Voice alone would far outpace the iPhones selection of farts and beer glass pouring apps.
The iPhone has VOIP apps in the store (WiFi only, but there they are). You can control Google Voice via web app (remember kids, GV is not VOIP) or by native app on Cydia.
As for tethering, AT&T in theory does not sell it yet but all you have to do is download a file (read the update at the end) to the iPhone and boom, it's enabled in the U.S. - other carriers already offer it. Or again Cydia has "An App For That" but it's honestly way more of a pain to set up and use.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
compared with the gen 1 iphone the gen 1 Android phone (HTC Dream) is far superior and HTC failure and DOA rate is far lower then that of Apple (this is why HTC phones are so expensive).
I actually agree with all of the points you make about the Android growth curve. I think it unfair to criticize Android before a few more years have passed, and it's not like the market cannot thrive with three or four top tier smartphones.
However, this point to me makes no sense. The only 1st gen iPhones I've heard of dying were from the usual traumatic combination of gravity and hard surfaces - but even then they are pretty tough, my first one survived three or four trips to the sidewalk from chest height and still worked fine (though the last one seriously dented the top and made the top button very hard to use). The HTC Dream has all kinds of sliding and other mechanical parts like the keyboard, there is simply no way it's more durable no matter how much money you pour into construction.
I don't think Android is competing with Windows Mobile though, that platform is pretty much dead already. They are just seeing what percentage of the void they can fill, and to some extent I think lure away Blackberry users with a more advanced phone that still offers a physical keyboard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Perhaps I can supplement your speculation with some substantial rumors...
Sprint says they're getting Android phones this year.
The sexy HTC Hero looks closest, possibly October 11. The CDMA version of the Hero has received FCC approval.
The Samsung InstinctQ looks to be the other one, probably arriving closer to the end of the year.
Any billing zip code in your state you had better set aside and remit sales tax to the local authorities, but the other 49 states aren't your problem. if google collected sales tax they would have to collect on every transaction.
Apple does. Or at least, you don't have to worry about any of that as an iPhone developer. I don't really care about the details nor do I want to.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Google has a disdain for marketing. To them, it's an afterthought. Put a bunch of guys with PhDs together and build something. Then it'll sell itself. That's the Google way.
Apple stuff is what the cool kids have so that is what the majority of people want. The majority of people are marketing whores.
TFA does make a good point that manufacturers having too much control over Android usage and divided the mindshare is probably the reason that it is not selling as well as it can/should.
App market size is only a tiny problem that the minority of consumers even notice. This is all quite simple.
Indeed. And I had to laugh at this gem in TFS:
none of them even seems to be trying to match the capabilities of the iPhone, let alone to knock us down with features that far surpass those of Apple's device
Wait, what now? All of a sudden it's okay to compare on features? What happened to all those people saying it doesn't matter that another phone has far more features than the Iphone, because that's just on paper, and features don't matter - that's just "grumpy featurism"?
But now an Android phone (allegedly) has fewer features (though we aren't told what the Iphone has in addition), features are suddenly worth comparing?
I'm glad that at long last, a Slashdot article actually acknowledges the existence of another phone - the Blackberry. For once we're not just faced with the false dichotomy of Iphone vs Android (artificially set up to make the Iphone look like it's the only phone worth having, by only comparing it to a phone that's even more of a niche product).
But even with the mention of the Blackberry, TFS still has to go on about the Iphone as if it's the only phone in existence.
It's also misleading to only look at the ill-defined market of "smart phones". In the mobile market as a whole, there are far bigger names (e.g., Nokia). The days of "phones for phoning, and smart phones for running programs and Internet" are long gone, as all but the cheapest phones can now do what was once the domain of the smart phone. And arguably, the Iphone is not well placed in the smart phone category, with it lacking features that even non-smart phones have. The only reason for putting it there is either due to its cost, or to artificially inflate its market share figure.
Seriously - this is the only firm requirement my employer had - "We have an exchange mail system, and we'll buy you any mobile device you want - so long as it can use ActiveSync." We were poised to use Android OS phones because iPhones were thought of as toys - with the exception of Exchange we're still mostly a *nix shop - but that one caveat changed the purchase of all our mobile devices.
I had high hopes after seeing the HTC Magic demos, but it turns out that was all smoke and mirrors. Trying to explain to my senior management that "it's a google phone but not really but it still has android but I'm not sure it's supported we'll see they bought the license" vs. "yes, the iPhone has ActiveSync capability" - guess who won?
It could be that the market for smartphones is just saturated right now. Google is coming late to a market where nearly everyone who wanted something like this already has either an iPhone or a Blackberry. Everyone else -- and that would be the vast majority of the population -- just wants a phone to make and receive phone calls and, below a certain age, send text messages, so the extra cost for a smartphone is a non-starter. The situation isn't likely to change until someone comes up with something much, much better than an iPhone. Merely being as good as an iPhone is not enough.
It's also worth considering that there is some element of a fad or fashion craze in this situation, too. What was the next big thing after the hula hoop? It sure wasn't a better hula hoop.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Where I work, one of the big reasons everyone at a certain level has an iPhone is that they can get the company to pay for it because it integrates with our exchange server. I'm seeing some movement to the Pre for mostly the same reason (and also because Sprint is running our new paging network). Android/G1? no support from IT because there isn't full exchange compatibility which means if you want one you pay out of pocket.
I do like my G1, but two issues really annoy me:
1) The tiny install space reserved for apps (I haven't worked up the gumption to hack it and install to the miniSD)
2) Pitiful/non-existent support for actual productivity (yes, there's an app that I would gladly pay $20 for that supports editing office docs, except you can't use it with the email client because that only supports downloading of images)
The google phone basically connected your life to your name to google. There was no way to use it without a google account.
All we all need is for google to know:
- who we call, when and for how long.
- who we email, when and all the contents
- documents we write, when and all the contents
- videos we create, when and all the contents
Thanks, but no thanks.
If your a website and run googleanalytics, you have betrayed your visitors. Thanks, but no thanks.
This is going to sound bitter, and I'm sorry to say it, but one big problem with Android is the users. I've developed a couple of apps, some of which I took down because of the support nightmare of dealing with the users. Because the system is "open source" (well, parts of it, anyway) users seem to have an expectation of free apps. That's just not realistic for some of the niche things I was working on, and for others, simply not worth it for others. And apps are ranked based on ridiculous expectations. Don't understand what an app is for? Install it anyway, then give it one star. I've seen this on my apps, and many other in the Market. All you have to do is read the comments in the Market to see how toxic the ecosystem is. And if those aren't bad enough, you should see some of the emails I got.
Maybe Apple just does a better job of policing the App Store comments, but some of the comments over there are actually..... constructive! I know some of the same issues with people not wanting to pay for apps exists on the iPhone as well, and I don't think either company releases hard numbers on what percent of apps are purchased, but I've read that it's much, much higher on iPhone. That combined with the vastly greater number of deployed iPhones will (and should) make developers focus on other platforms for the foreseeable future.
Google repeated Apple's mistake. They relied too much on carriers and let them dictate the terms. Without Google in the name no one is going to take notice. The Andriods phones turned out to be what people claim the iPhone to be, a toy which people buy to look edgy. While Google flounders around Apple is 3 generations ahead and poised to take the world by storm again when the iPhone goes cross-carrier.
Why is it that current Android devices (at least those that are out here in Australia) all have crappy screen resolutions compared to phones like the Nokia N-series (N97 etc), the iPhone and the top end Windows Mobile phones?
If someone released a phone with hardware specs that matched or beat the iPhone 3GS in every way and stuck Android on it (and then marketed the hell out of it), Android might start making a dent in the market.
I have to say it but the app that is missing... active sync! Come on, to take over any share of the WinMo market you must have a easy reliable sync with corporate MS Exchange. I have spent hours getting my old HTC Vogue (Okta touch in New Zealand) with an android OS and I finally found one only to find that there is no way to get contacts etc into the android contracts. Yes you can use a 3rd party app and have them on the phone in a location that only the app could use OR you can export them to google and get them there BUT WHY? give me a native sync and we are good to go!
Google is worried a dominant player like iPhone will make too heavy a demand for giving google access to its customer base. Android Chrome etc are all just basic insurance policcy for google. The marketshare target for google is not >50% or market dominance or anything like that. All it wants is to force other players to stay interoperative. It needs a marketshare big enough to do that. That is all.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I've come to the conclusion that smart phones suck. Or at least there's a good fraction of people who are quietly thinking this heresy in the back of their minds.This is not exactly my point I'm going to make but bare with me.
I almost bought a iPhone 3Gs when the day before my girlfriend came home after a shopping spree, having bought a netbook, a cellphone (which happend to have a mp3 player and sdcard slot) and 3g, and a dedicated 8gb mp3/video player all for less than the cost of buying an iPhone 3GS outright. A smartphone is rather deficient and at all these things, except, oh, perhaps matching the laptop in battery life.
Breaking it down, when you roll too many features into such a tiny package you end up with a compromised device that is difficult to call 'good enough' at any particular task, and easy just to plain say it 'sucks'.
So you buy a iphone 2g/3g/3gs or a HTC G1/G2/Hero. Your new smartphone will be:
Not a very good media player. iPhone does this best, but has it's own drawbacks (iTunes).
Not a very good computing platform (currently generation are barely able to multitask).
Full web browsing is a diminished experience on such a small device. Mobile versions of sites don't smooth this over either. (No flash/or flash like on the HTC hero barely works).
Finally the worst feature of a iPhone/Droidphone: Entering anything of length on a on-screen qwerty keyboard is excruciating. It requires far more precision and concentration than a real qwerty or keypad+predicitive where you can get some speed up. Try doing it while walking, while on a bus or a train that is jiggling you, or while your drinking. Infact being able to actually use your phone at all while rolling drunk is a oddly good metric of usability.
Some or all this is apparent to some people, perhaps makes the case in many people minds that they don't *need* a smartphone to improve their lives since would replicate alot of what they can already do with their existing gadgets. Unless there is a huge run of much cheaper Android phones out there, I don't see any room left for Android to gain market share. Basicly, it's just glutted at the high end.
That said... there are a metric assload of android phones due to be released over the 18 months..... will choice win out?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Business needs a fleet of Crown Vics, or Geo Metros.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
A lot of posts are pointing to this feature, or that feature. The fact is, Android 1.0 was may be 50% done. 1.5 is starting to come out of beta. I was annoyed with Sprint when their CEO said that Android wasn't ready for prime time, but he may have been right. Maybe 2.0 will actually be something worth getting behind. I hope so, because I have a couple apps in the market and a couple more in the works.
The thing I find most ironic is the comparison between iPhone and Android. They both lack a lot of the same things, but for some reason Apple is being heavy handed, but with Google it just hasn't been implemented yet, which is somehow excusable. Calendar and Bluetooth APIs (prior to iPhone 3.0) are the best examples. Android doesn't have either of these, and in fact removed them from 1.0 even though they were in the betas. On either device, the end result for the developer and end user is the same. Want a calendars or events in your app? Write your own in a walled garden or require your users to hack their phones. But iPhone is at least making progress, gives developers reasonable early access, and keeps its promises.
This smacks of a completely uninformed story from someone who has only ever played with an iPhone.
I've had my Android HTC Magic for 3 months and it has repeatedly stood up and traded punch for punch with my friend's iPhones.
In ONE area it was beaten - There is no X-Plane port. So Android lacks a cool flight-simulator, so far.
In SEVERAL areas, it came out the victor.
1. Many Augmented Reality platforms (Layar, Wikitude, Gammaray) are deploying on Android and really pushing the boundaries of this new technology. Quote from iPhoner upon seeing Layar in action: "Now, THAT's an application".
2. Google Sky Maps. Nuff said. Quote from iPhoner: *drool*
3. The openness of Android Market. The ease of getting apps into Android Market vs App store is well documented. In addition, third party websites can re-package the contents of Android Market, offering their own view of apps, searching, etc. I can share links about cool Android apps with others ( http://www.cyrket.com/package/com.sprx.layar ) . Conversely, if I want to see the entry for an interesting iPhone app, I cannot access the App Store without installing iTunes. FAIL.
4. The openness of Android in general - when Google and Facebook had their spat, yanking FB apps briefly, I went to a developers website to install their FB application with one click. You cannot install an application outside of App Store. FAIL.
5. Much more is possible on Android without rooting. It's fair to say that if you consider yourself a geek in any shape or form, you HAVE to jailbreak your iPhone in order to access the nuts and bolts of the platform. Quote from iPhoner: "huh, you can do all that and you haven't had to root it yet?"
6. I have already started developing apps for my phone with the really slick free Eclipse plugin and emulator that runs on Windows, Linux, Mac. It's a lot of fun. Quotes from iPhoners who are devs: "ehh, i have to pay to digitally sign it", and "eh, i don't have a Mac".
I could go on. But this is enough to make the point that the Android phones do not need to "match the capabilities of iPhone". They already do.
That said, I do agree that the Android platform has its problems.
And the biggest by far is Brand Name Fragmentation.
Google and the handset manufacturers need to present a much better brand identity. I know each corporation is honor-bound to try and force its own stamp on the product. But come on!!! Stop using different names in different countries!! HTC Magic, MyTouch 3G and G2 are all the same freaking phone, with cosmetic OEM differences. And there's only a few phones so far, how bad will it get when the forecast "18 Android phones" hit worldwide by the end of the year? Why not enforce a single name for each phone, and allow a carrier prefix? Vodafone Magic, Verizon Magic, T-Mobile Magic. What's so hard about that?
Don't get me wrong, the iPhone 3GS is a nice piece of kit. If there was no Android, it is the phone I would have.
But there IS Android, and there is a better way.
I was referring to failure of electronic components. Electronic failure is more common and severe then mechanical failure
That goes totally against common sense.
Apple are using cheaper chips then HTC and have a higher DOA rate then HTC.
A link to verify any of this? Were it true, why is the iPhone approval rating so high with users? I have literally NEVER heard of an iPhone being DOA out of the box.
Also the sliding mechanism in the Dream is remarkably simple compared to other slide phones
It can be as simple and amazing as you like, mechanical systems will eventually fail and are more prone to forces that make them fail (like angry users or simple sand).
WinMo is very much alive in Europe, Asia and Australia.
It's alive now, but no-way is it staying that way. They are back in the game way too late to matter. My prediction is they buy out Palm after a few jigs trying to make either the new Windows Mobile or even the Zune gain traction (they were looking for iPhone developers willing to port popular apps to the Zune).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The honest truth is, the Android API sucks. You're given the worst of both worlds -- doing simple things (like storing simple application settings) is tedious and awkward -- but neither are the tools powerful enough to do anything interesting.
As a developer, I found the whole experience of building apps for Android extremely disappointing. The potential is there, and it shines through in (for example) the Eclipse-based IDE tools, but the API itself absolutely sucks. Why is there no built in abstraction layer for persisting data? I have to manually create SQL databases and write SQL queries just to retrieve a simple application setting? Seriously??
The current cell phone oligopoly needs to be broken the same way the Bell system was busted. There was a time when you could only buy your land line phone from Bell, there was only one directory (Free -white pages, advertised - yellow pages), and they owned the system from handset to handset. Costs were high, service was slow, and innovation was non-existent. There was a time when having two phones in the same house was the province of the ultra-rich. Then it was broken, you no longer had to rent your phone from Bell, but could go to the local store and buy one. Plug into an rj-11 jack and go. Soon every house had a phone in every room, you could buy answering machines, plug in a modem.... heck it wasn't too long before phone companies started to innovate and provide other services like caller ID. Sorry for the history rant, but we need the major cell and network providers to stop owning us handset to handset again. Apple shouldn't have had to convince AT&T to carry its phone, there should be a generic standard like RJ-11 where we can plug our phones into their network, and they move the bits. If they want to innovate on top of the bit moving, great, but don't their ownership of the devices is the problem that is stifling the market.
So tiring reading the tirades of these M$ stooges. Hmmmm, I wonder why gravity boot sales haven't taken off more? Oh right, you can't buy them!!! Freakin idiot! Only T-Mobile has Android phones for sale and the G1 has had GREAT volumes in sales. The true test will come in the 4Q when handset makers actual come out with the handsets to buy. Xmas is the test for Android. For the moron author to this article, is your next article about why hasn't the 2015 Mustang not sold more? Hmmmmm, there are less 2015 Mustangs sold than 2009 Acuras, so there must be something wrong with the Ford company. Nice, how about posting a useful article next time.
I really reeeally *REEEALLY* want an Android phone. I even had a G1 for two weeks, and I loved it. The price of the phone and of the service were reasonable. The T-Mobile people were eager and nice. There was only one problem: I couldn't get any signal in my home, contrary to what the T-Mobile on-line coverage map made me believe. I was getting a weak signal down the street, but not in the house. I returned the G1 before the end of the 2 week trial period, switched back to AT&T and got some random crappy phone (at great expense I might add). But at least, I get a signal.
One of my plans was to get an unlocked G1 and use it with AT&T. Alas, AT&T uses frequencies for its 3G service that are not supported by the G1, nor by any other android phone, as far as I know. The whole situation suxx big time.So, you can use android phones with AT&T, but you won't get 3G speed.
Why, oh why won't android phone manufacturers support AT&T's 3G frquency band? The iPhone does it.
This isn't the point of Android. The point of android is to have high end, and inexpensive low end handsets. Google wants more people using smartphones...which means they want to drive the price down with a large range of handsets.
If Apple is BMW, Android can be Porsche, Ferrari, Toyota, Kia, Honda, etc....
"I told you a million times not to exaggerate!"
As an owner of a G1, I can't WAIT until 2010 when my contract expires so I can get the hell out from under this failtastic piece of shit. Randomly powers off? Check! Loses network connections whenever? Check! Crashes when I try to answer the phone? Checkaroo! Takes 3 minutes to become usable after restarting? Oh, that's a check! Interface slow like molasses in winter? You'd better believe that's a check! Broken accelerometer? Outside of warranty, CHECK! Shitty, tinny speaker? Check! Poor battery life? Check! Headphone jack? No check here.
I'm thinking about a netbook with someone else's data service and prepaid cellular. Fuck HTC, T-Mobile, and Google in their collective asses.
using Smart Mobile Phone,the Apple maybe the best,but I don't compare with iPone and Apple,whose market is bigger on cellpone.
How? A mobile phone is an electronic device. If the mechanical part (slide mechanism) on my HTC Dream fails but the electronic mechanism does not the phone still works as a phone. If the electronic components fails but the mechanical components.
Basic engineering, the more complex something is the more likely it is to fail. Electronic components are orders of magnitude more complex then mechanical components.
Marketing trumps engineering. An approval rate is no indication of good engineering when marketing takes over. The accepted failure of the iphone rate is 10%, some sources quote up to 15-20% but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. There isn't much info on the failure rate of the HTC Dream, given the fact that there is so little press and the Apple fanboys seem to have a special grudge against Google a high rate of failure would be publicised (lack of evidence is not evidence of lack, but apply Occams Razor here).
In either case, 10% failure is far too high for consumer electronics and the satisfaction rate for HTC owners is about the same.
This is where you need to take into account how vital that system is to the operation of the device. The mechanical system does not need to last forever, it just needs to last the lifetime of the device. Besides this is plain wrong, mechanical systems are less complex then electronic systems which are vulnerable to shock (angry users), particulate matter (dust, sand, dead skin cells) water, strong magnetic fields, overcharge or undercharge, extreme heat or extreme cold. More things can go wrong with the processor then the slide mechanism and if the slide mechanism breaks it is far easier to fix. An electronic system is more prone to fail in a harsh environment then a mechanical one, that is why they must be sealed.
My HTC has survived a trip to a hardwood floor, enough to make the back come off and the battery fall out and the slide mechanism seems unaffected, not suppressing seeing as it consist of only two hinges.
MS has a way of hanging on, even just by the skin of its teeth. I think it is premature to call the death of WinMo when so many phones are made with it.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Realistically, the only way i can see a new player challenging Apple is to introduce a innovative phone with a dedicated user base and a large app-base. I nominate Nintendo.
Android is newest.
Give it a year.
iPhone and Android have had similar growth, measured from their release dates. And that's based on basically a single, unattractive phone--the G1, without any kind of iTunes tie-in, and without the hype that surrounded the iPhone.
So, Android has been growing just fine, and it will do better and better relative to the iPhone as new devices and new applications come out.
What part of "don't have to pay Apple money to develop for Android" and "don't have to get Apple's permission to distribute" did you not understand?
Free (as in beer) is nice but that doesn't prove "friendliness" or the lack of it. Being cheap doesn't cause something to be of good quality or well designed or well documented. It's not hard to find crappy software and being free doesn't make it less crappy.
As for needing permission to distribute, that is potentially annoying I'll grant you though to be fair it's not without some benefit to both developers and users. It has the potential to keep a lot of bad software and (probably) malware out of the platform which is a good thing on balance. Nevertheless I'll agree that it has the potential to be frustrating. Does Apple abuse their position sometimes? Yep - so that is one strike against Apple but not by itself conclusive proof that Android is more friendly to developers.
on the Android platform, replacing core apps with your own version is *encouraged*, and in fact *designed into the platform*.
Again, none of this *necessarily* means "friendlier" to developers. Freedom (as in speech) is only a part of the equation. If the development tools suck or the platform is hard to write for or the documentation sucks, developers won't care whether you can replace the core apps or not. You are talking about how open the platform is which is just one factor in determining how friendly a platform is to developers. Android might be the best thing since sliced bread but you are providing little evidence to prove that assertion.
...but as a developer platform and ecosystem, the only thing Android is missing is higher handset sales.
Really? Are the development tools better and/or more mature? Is the interface easier and/or faster for developers? Is the documentation thorough, easy to read and clearer than the documentation for the iPhone? Is the hardware platform more stable and well understood? Are there more developers actively developing for Android than the iPhone? You assert that it is "better" but you provide almost no evidence to back up your argument. I'm willing to be convinced either way but please make a decent argument.
mostly Google's complete lack of support for Exchange...I would have considered a G1 if it would have played nice with Exchange like the iPhone or Blackberry or Windows Mobile. I have T-Mobile (for the past 6 years) and deemed the G1 unacceptable from an enterprise standpoint, not for its apps or openness. It just wouldn't work like I needed it to with Exchange. Doing IT for a small business, it came down to what can I support as a standard across pretty much every carrier...and guess what, it's a Blackberry or Win Mobile phone.
It's not just one thing. The phones running Android by comparison with the iPhone are bad. If you want to write games, enjoy your OpenGL ES 1.0/1.1 which is quite limited in capabilities. The hardware is diverse, to the point where your app may need to be capable of changing how it operates to function to capacity on several different phones (!!!!!!!!! WOW! THAT IS WHAT THE OS IS MEANT TO STOP! BUT IT STILL HAPPENS, EVEN WITH JAVA!!!!). And T-Mobile just ... well.. sucks. A triumvirate of fail that makes me wonder why Google developed Android if they weren't willing to put up a good product behind it to set their own "gold standard," or at least be a little more picky with their partners.
Hopefully someone will make an amazing phone and run Android on it. That will definitely help greatly with the success of the OS, but writing games for a platform with variable hardware just makes me want to say "screw it, I'm writing this for an iPhone" since I know the app I test runs GREAT on my iPhone, it'll do the same on yours. No need to test 10+ phones and tweak for each.
The hardware is lacking, thus far. The best part of android is that anyone can make a phone with their OS. The worst part is that ANYONE can make a phone with their OS.
You know, we can debate the service of specific US Carriers and the sexiness of certain devices only allowed on certain carriers but at the end of the day the operating system is what is going to become more and more important when it comes to usability in a device, especially for smart phones. In fact, I hesitate to call them "smart" anymore, because they're really more about keeping us in touch with what's important to us and delivering media content. we're the smart ones controlling the device. As the market grows, and carriers expand, people will recognize, just as they have with computers, that the OS makes the difference. I own a mac and a pc. I've had a Treo and a Blackberry. The more people use the device the more they figure out what works best for them. This will hold true for hand held devices in the future too. SIDE NOTE: But I do have to say, that this name calling and fanboy crap has gotta stop. I mean, this constant back and forth about which phone's OS is superior and this service and that service. Everyone needs to just chill out and find what's best for them. The technology will double in 1.5 years anyway and these debates will still be going on but they'll just be about a different device. I think the best thing that we can do as consumers or developers is to work with the technology and help companies drive it to a place of our liking. There will always be game changers and there will always be followers and early adopters and startups... but that's the exciting part, everything keeps on changing.
I was through design, specs and had implemented IPC and task control for my application, when I decided to have a look at the Android app store. I paid the $25 to get my rights to publish. Curiously I CANNOT CHARGE FOR MY APPS! Android store only supports google checkout as mediator for the money. And google checkout merchant accounts are not available in my country.
So what to do? Basically, according to the help docs, twiddle my thumbs untill they make checkout available in Finland. I wonder if Google knows how big mobile development is here? Because of our pride in Nokia, pretty much every coder has some kind of experience in Symbian development. And thus, basic understanding of mobile development.
Well, to get some feeling of the engine room, I started researching the lower part of the Android stack while I wait.
Bot Assisted Blogging
Have you ever looked at an open source project, and exclaimed "Holy Porsche"?! Never, right?
Phone buyers buy the hardware. Computer buyers care more about software. On slashdot, users talk more about the phone's software but general users do not differentiate.
That is why buyers are not queuing up to buy "android" phones. Maybe Google should have a reference architecture and work with manufacturers to sell the Google Phone. It might work then and all the marketing dollars will go to build the "Gphone" brand.
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
iPhone is Mac. Android is Windows/PC. Phone makers have no other choice except to go with Android. They can't build iPhones. Period. Android's rise is inevitable, there are no other choices.
Apps make the phone. Google has been pushing very hard on apps. They have a critical mass of apps to win over the phone makers already. With all of the Android phones hitting the market soon it will also be a no-brainer for app developers to choose Android. It's a snowball effect and the ball is already rolling, guaranteed.
Luckily Android is very developer friendly both to app developers and phone makers.
They should have learned from Apple and not made the same stupid mistake they made with the first "iPod phone," the Motorola E790 Apple iTunes phone. Further, there are other phones that have features worthy of competing with the iPhone; just the other day somebody was showing me high-speed video of surprising quality (of a stray flying remote hitting someone in the face, incidentally), taken with their phone.
the most powerful intellect is that unbounded by indubitable preconception
The truth is we really don't know how Android is going to do, because there are hardly any Android phones on the market. Supposedly there are quite a few coming, but we'll see whether they actually materialize or not.
The real problem with Android, though, was the launch. They released an incomplete OS with no real application support on one phone on one second rate carrier. Then there was nothing. No new phones, no new carriers...nothing. Google should have waited until the OS was done and they could get at least two or three hardware manufacturers on board to release phones. There was plenty of buzz over Android BEFORE it was released, but not after. They rushed it out the door in a package that not too many people were really interested in. Android could be the greatest mobile OS ever but who would know?
I guess since it was google they figured we would all just fall at their feet. Either that or they figured they could roll it out on a shit carrier on one phone in order to work out the bugs. Keep it low profile so that anything that went wrong was just small deployment stuff...shaking the bugs out before the bigtime. Then, later on, start the full court press once it has a reputation good enough to get larger manufacturers for bigger carriers interested...and once they are sure they are delivering a solid product.
To me it seems like they just wasted the Android buzz that they had before the launch though. If this was an OS that was really targeted at "regular" cell phones I would think that their strategy was good...but this is an OS for smart phones which are a premium product with an audience that wants what is hot and what is current. They took the buzz that seems like it is EVERYTHING in selling a product like this and pissed it away on an extremely limited market. IMHO Android's first deployment should be the 10(?) phones that are supposedly on the way now. We should have all been salivating all this time rather than saying "oh yea I have one friend who has one but I haven't really seen it".
Google has the iPhone.
I consider AT&T the second rate carrier, that likes to give their customers the shaft at regular intervals. They are also really expensive. But if you live/travel in T*Mobile's not great coverage area, or your company pays your cell bill without question, I understand going with AT&T.
The Iphones UI isnt just attractive and sharp looking its very intuitive and functional. It has a larger appeal to the masses. That is, it appeals to people who arent power user computer people. It's not that complicated to understand.
Microsoft isnt far off with a zune oriented phone. Google needs more pizazz. They keep trying to translate their minimilist philosophy from their search engine to other products. Not a good idea.
I have put down my SE P910i and bought the HTC Magic. No animated gifs No flash Very few movie codecs Stupid proprietary connector Woeful camera Abysmal battery life No bluetooth file receive I hope the new Xperia X3 is more P910 lke and less G2.
Likewise, other products by The GOOG kinda aren't half of what they could be, such as Google Docs (the other day I was trying to do a Gantt chart on the spreadsheet). Can I sort a column skipping every two cells? Can I do regex search or them? Can I do crazy things? No, The GOOG does not allow crazy such as why, why, oh why there ain't no official Ruby support on The GOOG? etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
I investigated Android 1.5 when looking at upgrading my phone recently, so I pulled down the SDK and fired up the emulator with an Android 1.5 instance. I was amazed at how limited it is - even more than the iPhone.
SSL/TLS support is painfully, cripplingly limited. You simply *can't* use mail providers that have self-signed certificates or (more likely) have certs signed by a company private CA. Android doesn't support importing CA certificates at all. Android also lacks any support, of any sort, for managing user X.509 certificates (via the common PKCS#12 transport format or otherwise) so if you need to access web or mail services that require you to authenticate with a client certificate, you're out of luck.
Even if your mail provider happens to use a cert signed by one of the pre-installed trusted CAs you'll discover you can't even delete messages or mark them as read using the IMAP client, so you're wasting your time anyway. Guess they want you to give up and use GMail.
The whole thing is built around Google services and things like decent IMAP support are a hopeless afterthought. File manager? Nope, not in any useful sense. Open local HTML documents, PDFs, etc? Not really ( there's a clumsy workaround for the browser that kinda works, but doesn't provide dir indexing so it's pretty useless ). Decent desktop sync? Nope (you're using Google's address book, right? Right?).
Google seems even less interested than Apple does in making it a flexible phone for general use. I'd say part of the reason it's not doing great is because it doesn't do very much, doesn't do it very well, and really has few attractions or distinguishing features over cheaper mid-to-low-end S60-based handsets let alone high-end S60 phones and the iPhone. The SDK and dev tools aren't awful, but can't touch the iPhone, and just don't give you enough platform access, so app development is somewhat more limited. Experienced java devs will spend most of their time swearing at the butchered and cut-down JRE and libraries, and wondering where basic things like platform certificate services are (answer: there aren't any! Too bad!).
Right now, Android seems to be competitive with Nokia's Series 40 and maybe the older Windows Mobile phones, the Sony Ericsson phones, and some of the custom ones like the LG Prada. Pretty but limited, or just limited. It's really just not a smartphone OS yet.
this article is full of it.
android is new and has 3%. the iphone has been around years. while crackberry has been around about 10 years. if anything this shows that blackberrys position is weakening.
just the facts
Yes, they offer *an API*, but as the parent suggests, it's nothing compared to what you get from Apple, or (shock horror!) MS. About the only major phone OS that they're better than is Symbian, and that's not really saying much. Things that should be simple and well supported (eg. using the audio device) are painful and poorly documented. That's one of the main reasons, as a developer, I've held off getting one so far.
Maybe when the NVidia Tegra chipset based android phones are released I'll change my mind, but for now there's simply not enough there to convince me that they're a viable platform.
But here in the UK Android seems to be picking up momentum - theres finally some choice in handsets available (a few from HTC and a few others inbound from the likes of Sony and Samsung). While the initial G1 OS was a bit clunky the cupcake (1.5) update improved things a lot.
Speaking anecdotally, half a dozen of my friends have recently upgraded their phones (as in the past month). Five of them picked Android (3 Magic's and two Hero's) while the other went for a Nokia. Of course I also know more than a few iPhone fans as well.
Speaking personally, this Nokia user will be looking at Android very closely when its time to upgrade at the start of next year.
Htc have launched an android phone with their new Sense UI
If you've ever used a Htc phone before, you'll recognize it as being very similar to their awesome TouchFlo 3D interface for windows mobile.
The G1 is too underpowered to be serious competition for the Iphone, but things are getting better.
Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox
After reading most in this thread it is strange that no one mention the new NVIDIA Tegra that is on the way.
I am developing (just started) apps for Android but are waiting to buy a phone until I can get one with Tegra.
Ok, Tegra is not a Android only cpu (actually more than just a cpu too) but it is JUST what the Android need. Not an obscure manufacture but one of the biggest and most know and respected.
NVIDIA is great at reference designs and that will make it fast and easy (read cheap) to make an Android phone for any hardware manufacture. Samsung is saying that next year we will see sub $100 Android phones, and that can iPhone never compete with.
iPhone is a great phone (that you can play a little with) but a Tegra phone with Android will replace 10+ gadgets for me (GPS, Garmin Forerunner, MP3/MP4 player, media computer (720p and 1080p), web surfing computer (on my 37" TV), VOIP and yes a normal mobile phone too) and with sub $100 phones everyone will be able to own a Android phone, not just us geeks.
Android will never compete with iPhone, like that a computer never compete with a fancy gold plated calculator.
As far as the manufacturers concern, Google only provide a platform and has no control over the phone design. For example, no one in Japan would buy Nokia or need Ovi apps, they don't even have GSM in the first place. At the moment, those apps are just icing on the cake, no one is going buy a phone or Apple iphone just for the apps, yet. As for Android, you just have to get the phone design and basic features right, which is out of Google control. I mean, how can anyone buy an ugly phone with an angle?
Just look at HTC, most of their products including the Hero are more expensive than iphone. They did something interesting to the Hero software interface, but their hardware especially the camera is rubbish.
I have been developing for Android non-stop for most of this year. I found the SDK very easy to use (having done J2ME and Blackberry before). The API is stable, and not buggy. I found all the documentation and examples I needed on one website http://developer.android.com/index.html and found the UI classes very flexible. I was able to clone the look and feel of an iPhone app quite easily just by using the xml styling, a couple of animations and one custom layout component. The API is the best I have used, and in my opinion much better than objective-c (we develop for iPhone too), which is a bit of a cludge on top of C. Expect Android to start turning up on a lot of embedded devices, not just phones (HP photo-copiers for example, cameras). In the B2B market (selling bespoke apps to companies, handset manufacturers and network operators) there is a lot of buzz around Android. We develop for both iPhone and Android, and see more potential for Android at the moment (as we mainly are B2B, and are not too interested in writing apps that may or may not make money in the Shop/Market). We are also looking for more experienced Android developers at the moment.
(Posting anon because I already modded)
When y'all drop a phone, *kick it* lightly off your shin to eat up about half the momentum.
I thought that Google's strategy was not to build a monopoly like Apple, but instead to build a diverse ecosystem that creates competition between manufacturers, resulting in long term value for customers, a robust platform, and influence for Google in directing that platform.
Therefore, comparing a couple of Android phones that are clearly initial products closer to "proof of concept" than mass market devices, doesn't seem meaningful. The only conclusion I'd draw from Android's 3% is that they're actually managing to take market share without a mature product on the market.
Whilst Apple is doing pretty well with the iPhone (I own one), I don't think Google set out to make a fast buck on this. Give it a few years, then we'll be able to see how Android is doing. I hope that when my iPhone contract expires, I'll be able to buy an Android phone next time around.
> What part of "don't have to pay Apple money to develop for Android" and "don't have to get Apple's
> permission to distribute" did you not understand?
The reason why apple should be developing Android and why I have to pay them to.
Okay, there was only one phone with the Android OS until very recently. It's going up against the iPhone which has been out 3 or 4 years, the Blackberry which has been out 5-10 years, and many other 'smart phones' that are established with Windows Mobile.
3% is huge. Any random phone would love to have 3% in a market that included Apple and Blackberry as the main players.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
it's going to gain momentum slowly, not become the next big thing overnight.
where have I heard that before?
I predict 2010 will be year of the andriod... wait no, make that 2011... wait, it'll definitely reign supreme in 2012
year of the linux desktop, or year that ps3 finally beats xbox 360 in sales figures, take your pick. either way, it's been "next year" for a long time now
there's no app for that
There are 16 Android powered handsets that remain to be launched in the next 60 days. This includes models from Motorola, LG, and Samsung. The author of the article simply had no freaking clue what he was talking about, and as a result, he's missed:
* the G1 has 3% market share. Ummmmm..... that's a lot of handsets.
* The primary limit isn't the "crappy hardware" - it's the crappy network (yes, T-Mobile, your network is crappy until Indianapolis has 3G). Actually it's very good hardware, and the only rub against it is onboard storage and battery life. $25 8GB micro SDs fix the storage issue nicely and you can actually *replace* the battery, a novel idea in 1932 that Apple should have noticed by now. Oh, the primary limit might be the #3 network in the US being the only channel to get an Android in the US?
*Oh, there's also the little fact that THE CUSTOMER FOR HANDSETS IS NOT THE USER OF THE HANDSET IN THE US. The customer is THE CARRIER WHO RESELLS THE HANDSET. Openness is *not* in their financial interest, so class 3 Android (open w/Google Apps) is not in their interest. Fortunately, they see T Mobile retaining customers with the G1, and want some of that.
Here's reality:
* Android to date has been a success.
* The application base is built for future success.
* 16 new devices are going to hit the market by the end of the year from some of the biggest names in mobile.
* Android will be available on most carriers. The only question mark seems to be ATT, but they are rumored to have a Motorola handset out soon.
* Android is going to turn the smartphone into the PC market of early 90s when Wintel at Apple's lunch. There are few people (and zero would be correct) that can argue that a PC clone was better than a Mac at the time, but Windows did allow hardware manufacturers to lower costs to offset Apple's considerable advantage in technology. Oh, and Android is *a lot* more formidable competitor than Windows 3.x was.
-- $G
My thoughts are that android has no clear point of difference to the consumer from any other phone on the market.
Apple spend a lot of money marketing how integrated their phone is with music/email/calendaring etc. That's their point of dce.
ï
So since android does much the same thing as the iphone, why would any ordinary person choose an android phone over the already well known iphone?
It was never Google's or HTC's plan to take the market by storm, they intended to bleed Android in slowly rather then try to shove it at everyone at once a la Apple.
So basically it's not a bug, it's a feature, right?
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
The only problem with the android is the network its stuck on. Major market after Major market with NO!!!! 3G support and poor grps/edge support.
Hard to have a smart phone when the network is dumb.
...over the design and marketing of Android phones...
Wait, Android has marketing? Really? Has anyone here ever seen any ad for Android?
Is skype with full access to skype in and skype out over the carriers data network too much to ask for???? Skype for mobile phones while using your carriers minutes = WHAT'S THE POINT????
The minute I can purchase a phone, sign up for a minimal (or nothing) voice plan and an unlimited data plan (that's actually UNLIMITED) and use skype over the data network... I'll be all over it.
We just got the iPhone here in Japan (Live in Japan) and I'm not impressed except for the games :-P
I really, really like my HTC Magic through T-Mobile. Have VoIP, tethering, google voice, etc installed. Works great, nice interface, beautiful screen, etc. No complaints whatsoever.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
I really don't see Android as a platform for the user, I see it as a platform for phone makers. As a user, I don't care what OS my phone uses. I ran an iPhone for a couple years, I use a G1 now, I prefer the G1 but recommend iPhone for most people I know.
It's just a damn phone, they both work real well, the differences for the end user are pretty small.
But if you're a phone manufacturer... well, you obviously can't make an iPhone. But, there's this free, well designed, already-has-a-market(the start of one anyway), already has a SDK, already has a market place full of apps smart phone operating system you can build your phone on. That's the people I think Google was going for.
The first version of Android was pretty much limited to G1 type hardware. It didn't have an on screen keyboard, you needed a flip out one, so that really limited the type of device it could be on. I also think the screen resolution was locked in too. 1.5 changed all that and we're just now starting to see new phones come out based on that release. I really see the launch on the G1 as more of a public beta test. It rolled out the market place, worked out some kinks, proved that Android is a stable working phone OS. Any manufacturer today can build on Android knowing that it'll just work, it's not a risk to use it.
And for the end user... well who cares if most people are using iPhones? It's a great phone. But there needs to be "another" phone and I think Android is pretty well setup to be the platform most of those other phones use. It's a pretty win-win scenario for end users.
I can't buy one you insensitive clod, I live in Canada!
Yet another reason to re-examine how our telecommunication companies up here operate. They are actively degrading the telecommunications and technological advancemnt of Canada. This is plainly not in our best interests, and quite possibly a national security risk. In short, they suck.
This may be similar to what happened to Palm. There were so many supposedly Palm compatible devices - all of them slightly different - that it became difficult for developers to keep up.
Of course the biggest reason that developers aren't flocking to Android is that consumers aren't flocking to Android phones. Development isn't a religion. People do it to earn a living, especially all those developers who jumped on the iPhone bandwagon. The people who bought iPhones were obviously people who had money to spend and wanted everyone to know it. It stands to reason that that consumer mentality would translate to their software purchases as well. Because Android came out quite some time after iPhone, now the only developers left are the "religious" developers, those who choose a platform base on principles instead of money alone.
Google Voice is the game changer. And if they implement VOIP to originate and terminate calls without POTS, this will be the real iphone. (I'm talking about the Linksys iphone, no the iPhone.) This would completely dominate the current voice/sms offerings available today. Apple (ATT) would never allow this.
You buy the phone and a data contract, all calls go through Google VOIP. Oh, and international calls are 2c/min. SMS is free.
The phone number and service is the worst part of your phone.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
I did a little bit of research, but it didn't seem like a good open source platform to play with. I couldn't find a site with publicly downloadable dev tools and there were app-store-like restrictions. If it isn't any better than my Motorola Ming (cool phone in its day but a huge disappointment) then why bother?
As a hard core open source advocate, I don't see any reason to use Android - I am going to wait for the Nokia N900 to compare.
I really enjoyed and agreed with almost the entire piece by John Gruber linked to in the summary (http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/the_android_opportunity). My problem with the G1 was my impression of the hardware, I actually returned it and got an iPhone 3G. I coworker kept his G1 and is now complaining that he can't load as many apps as he wants due to the restriction of where apps can be loaded (not on the SD card). Android itself seemed OK, definitely not polished enough for my tastes, and I know Google can do better - I'm mostly satisfied with search, email, Picasa, Google Earth, etc.
However, the comment that the high end Android phone to knock the iPhone 3Gs off the throne should have a built in battery is crazy. If the only reason is to prevent a creaky case, I'm sure there is a solution that uses screws that would at least allow users to replace batteries without having to go somewhere or send their phone in the mail. Better yet is to allow a battery on the back that goes on with a single recessed thumbscrew or bayonet that can be made snug (e.g. my Garmin eTrex has no creaking) AND allow for multiple 3rd party options for battery packs that run the gamut from thin low life to very thick, very long life.
My other thoughts on what I want in a high end phone are:
- a very high resolution large screen: 3.5" 480x320 isn't doing it for me. I want at a minimum 4.5" 854x480 and even better would be to go all the way to a 720p HD screen for watching video (1280x720, 60 Hz refresh or better, enough bits for a good color gamut). If a phone can be made with very thin borders on either side of the width of the screen (say 3 mm) and only moderate borders on the length (say 8.5 mm), then a 5" display can fit in a phone that is 128x68mm which is smaller than a Nokia 810 (with only a 4.1" screen). If bigger borders are needed, scale the diagonal down a bit to still fit in the 128x68 mm form factor (just a bit narrower than a 3"x5" card).
- some powerful ports: with such a nice display, I'd like a tethered camera with a lens that is much nicer than anything I can fit into a phone and then plug it in to take a picture. This way I can a) hold the lens part high in the air to shoot over people's heads or low to the ground to shoot kids from a better vantage point while still standing comfortably as well as face the display any direction I want even with a jacket over my head if the sun is too much for the display.
- add a radio section (software radio if possible) that is optimized for medium distance (a mile or a bit more) data communications on unlicensed bands between two devices without using any cell phone towers. I'm often out of service when in the backcountry and sometimes need to coordinate with a partner (sometimes the partner is only 50 meters away on a climbing rope and I can't yell to them or get rope tugs to work very well)
Dara
Rumor was they were supposed to get something called the Lancaster in August. Last I had heard, ATT rejected it (something about the phone not having a "standard" ATT experience). The Lancaster wasn't exciting anyhow though, I didn't wait for it either.
Apple stuff is for people who want products designed for regular people. Other tech companies design products for people who are geeks. Many of the benefits listed of the Android platform are things the general public doesn't even care about to begin with. What the larger market wants is an easy to use powerful device. With Android you just get the powerful part.
No wonder Apple's mopping the floor with them.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
If you want the latest information regarding Android and the hardware supporting it, go to www.phandroid.com
I have yet to find a better site for keeping up to date on Android and all the hardware coming out.
Don't make judgements until you have the facts!!!
My Palm Pre already runs an interface that looks like Andriod.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/21/palm-pre-android-port-already-in-progress/
http://www.precentral.net/homebrew-apps/androidapp
Why would I want to switch? It's Linux, I can root the phone, it outshines the iPhone, has a ton of homebrew apps and games (most are free), awesome display, it can multitask, and the hardware is awesome.
As a side note, wouldn't it be nice if you could buy any cell phone and choose the provider you wanted. Instead, they lock it down to a phone and this has been the #1 reason for the 'Google phone's' failure.
Farhad makes a lot of good points, but he underestimates the transformative nature of the iPhone. I agree that Google should build its own phone, but it's not about making yet another bespoke handset, it's about building another mobile computing transformation that Apple, with its walled garden approach, cannot even contemplate. It's not nearly enough to be a bit better than the iPhone - any serious competitor will need to take the next gigantic leap forward, and do it before Apple does.
Informative? You obviously haven't looked if you haven't seen one.
As many others have said, Rogers not only sells them for a lot less than an iPhone (on term contracts), they don't tie you to specific plans like they do iPhone. They have been marketing the Android phones a lot.
Money for nothin and your chicks for free.. No, actually Google Checkout deals with collecting sales tax, when and if required.. Phone apps aside, they wouldn't be much of a payment service if they didn't have this ability.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Can your i-phone be used as a metal-detector?
If I had a nickle every time someone's asked me that...
Yeah, HTC phones do suck. The Samsung Galaxy is the one I'm waiting for, personally. It looks like it has none of the shortcomings of the HTC phone, and I've never had a Samsung phone that I didn't like (okay, maybe individual gripes, but they makes solid gear). Hopefully they'll be out in the US sometime soon.
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
It's the name, it is horrible for marketing. Clearly thought of by a Google nerd and not a Google marketer.
"Android" ... nerd... stuff. Do you think any cool pre-teen would be raving to her BFFs that she just got this sweet Android phone? Hell no. iPhone sounds ok, cool, hip, whatever. Android says "I'm a dork, please steal my lunch money now and give me a wedgie."
PS: like anyone who reads this site, I'd go into the later category and enjoy both phones. However, Android is a super-terrible name for a consumer device that should have broad appeal.
Biggest marketing blunder of 2000-2010 decade
I didn't focus my comment clearly. I wanted to target the lack of change in consumer products and telephone service. The innovations of Bell labs were turned into products when they got into the hands of others. Unix and C didn't thrive until they made a mistake and let it loose in the academic space. Up into the 70's most of the phone infrastructure was more mechanical than electronic. Not to belittle their contribution, but nothing deployed from Bell labs that would disrupt their phone monopoly, at best only changes that reduced their cost of delivering the same service would see the light of day. To expand the subject, Microsoft won't deploy any product that will compromise Windows or Office unless forced by competition. They only embraced the internet when Netscape became a threat and when Netscape was beaten, IE6 was never upgraded. Xerox had great research, but their only desire was protecting the copier monopoly.
If I buy a Google phone, it had damn well better perform easy/quick search on the phone's own data, or the data stored in the local calendar, etc.
I've got a great idea. Why doesn't Google harness the power of all those PhDs they hired to actually write software? Unless that would cut too much into their quality time of sitting around the cafeteria telling each other how smart they are.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods
The original problem with Android was the HTC hardware. It was severly lacking esp when compared to the iPhone, Pre and Symbian S60 devices. Slow processors with not enough memory, same as their Windows Mobile phones.
Take the Hero, good build quality, fancy and polished GUI, but not enough memory to use those 7 'desktops' with the widgets that they advertise!
I think Android really needs a Arm Cortex 8 based phone with a decent amount of RAM.
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person