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Android 2.0 — Competition Against the iPhone and the Rest
GMGruman writes "Every few months, it seems, there is a new 'iPhone killer.' Android 2.0, in the guise of the Motorola Droid, is the latest such 'killer.' But what will it really take to beat or match the iPhone (single page), and does Android or any other mobile OS have the right stuff? There's a lot more to the answer than is usually discussed. This article takes a look at the strengths that may allow Droid and Android 2.0 to provide strong competition to devices like the iPhone and the Blackberry, as well as the obstacles it continues to face that could inhibit adoption."
Really. There will always be some number of viable devices competing. Each will appeal to some group that values its strengths over what the others have to offer. The only way iPhone can fail is to lose to several competitors, not just one. The iPhone isn't the market leader now. So how can one phone or O/S kill the iPhone or anything else?
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I hope there's no single 'killer'. Diversity is a good thing, it gives choice and keeps competition driving things forward. It won't be too many years before pretty much all phones are smart phones, and there's a lot of room in the phone market for a lot of vendor's to exist and profit.
So here's to hoping we see a nice market share for iPhones's OS, Android, Maemo, WebOS, and Windows Mobile.
It comes down to carriers, and Verizon Wireless does have excellent coverage. I'm on an expired contract so I could have jumped to AT&T without any penalties, but the Droid has got what I've always wanted: a phone that's open enough to let me hack for fun, while also polished enough that I don't have to hack it just to make the basics work.
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The problem he's referring to is that the combined size of all your apps is 256MB on current phones, this isn't an individual app limit.
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I hate to say it, but it just made no sense and backed up almost none of the opinions it presented.
You can't kill the iphone by trying to copy it. You have to:
1) Find a way to steal it's best customers in a way it can't keep up with.
2) Wait for it to get big, fat, and lazy.
Just copying the leader may get you investment dollars, but it won't get you market share.
What all the Android fanbois don't know, or tell you, is that Android has a 256 MB app storage limit.
No. Please learn to read. That phone has 256MB for app storage. My G1 dev phone as 1.5GB for app storage (because I've only got a 2GB card in it, and I wanted some room for ringtones, etc.)
Google, just WTF where you thinking?
Considering it was Motorola that designed the Droid, why would you think that Google had anything to do with it?
I think the Droid campaign has been brilliant so far, and has stirred up a lot of interest and buzz about the phone.
As a Pre owner, I wish Palm had done something like that instead of using the strange scary-lady ads that didn't do anything for anyone.
My bet is when the Droid is actually launched, you will see those ads showing what it can do that the iPhone can't and why it's cool.
What has me puzzled is why Nokia hasn't got any commercials out for it's N900. It runs a Debian Linux variant, and runs full flash right now, and it's hardware is superior to the Droids in some ways. Why they aren't shouting about it from the rooftops, I don't know.
One problem killing the iPhone, is that most of the iPhone's weaknesses are one policy change away from disappearing.
Enough people want background apps? Well there they are.
Enough people want customizable lock screens? Alright, that's easy enough.
Enough people want shared file storage? There, done.
Enough people want post-hoc approval of apps, like Android? No problem, it'll save Apple time and money to boot.
Enough people want unsigned apps distributed outside the app store? Ok, here you go.
Enough people want Flash, or other browser plugins? Fine, Adobe has been clamoring to put Flash on iPhone since it's inception.
Enough people want root access? Fine, administration is their problem.
Apple keeps those measures of control because they help to protect their platform's image from incompetent or unscrupulous coders, and their negative impact on most users is relatively minor. If that balance ever shifts, either due to more competent coders (supposedly Flash 10.1 is heavily optimized) or more demanding users (with friends whose phones do some or all of the above), the rules can change in an instant.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
1) It forgets to mention the 1 major thing that gave the Iphone such a major push forward. Marketing!
Actually, I'd say the major thing that gave the iPhone such a major push was the fact that it was the best thing at the time. People seem to have forgotten the awful "smart" phones we had before Apple decided to shake things up. The iPhone may or may not still be the best thing around (I don't know), but it seems to me we probably would have no Android today without the fresh competition Apple provided.
So will Android devices overtake the iPhone? Well I sure hope so. It would be pretty sad indeed if Android wasn't able to gain any headway seeing as how it will be on multiple devices and multiple networks and there is only one iPhone on one network. Ultimately, I think Android will be considered a success, but I also think it won't have much impact on Apple.
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This is NOT an Android limit. It is a limit of the flash memory that the manufacturer decides to put in their phones. Moto decided to put just 512MB on their device, probably because that was the biggest size they could stack. Adding more would require a separate chip, like a Samsung MoviNAND (basically an SD card in IC package) that would take up more PCB room. But if they had laid down moviNAND they could have got 2G, 4G, 8G or maybe even more. There will be plenty of multi gigabyte Android devices out there in 2010.
Any single Android app can only be 256MB in size, and if any app uses that allowance, it's the only one you can install on the phone.
Bullshit. Maybe if you pulled your head out of Steve Jobs ass, it might improve your reading comprehension.
Also, read carefully: Android has a 256MB limit for total app storage.
No. YOU read carefully:
Android has no such limit. That particular phone has 256MB for total app storage. It is not an Android limit, regardless of how much you might want it to be.
That's nothing compared to the fact that there isn't any android phone with 3d acceleration.
False. The G1 has 3D acceleration and supports OpenGL ES. Here's a video of a demo program you can download from the Android Market.
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Trying to get a "dumb phone" in 5 years will be like trying to get a cell phone that doesn't do anything except make phone calls today. They pretty much all do sms, web surfing, mp3, java games, etc.
Spoken like a review from a windowshopper.
Look, there is nothing special about the Iphone OS any more.
That just isn't true. Android 2.0 is pretty attractive on the surface, but it's still plagued with UI and usability kinks that have yet to be worked out. Multi-touch still isn't quite right, nor is it fluid. Android's interaction on the desktop is much better than most of its competitors, but it still lags behind the iTunes experience. There are plenty of advantages to the iPhone platform, including the iPhone OS.
When someone writes a wrapper for these App store Apps that allows them to run on Android, its game over for this particular advantage.
That's what they said about Linux and Windows in 1996. Easier said than done. We're still waiting.
But lets face it, the hardware has no particular advantage any more
The pile of hardware components was never the advantage to begin with. The devil's in the details. It'd be a trivial effort to out-spec the iPhone's hardware, but that doesn't get you anywhere on its own. Look at the terrible state of video playback at the time on smartphones even with the same muscle as the first generation iPhone.
Whether you love the iPhone or hate it, it's indisputable that it was a kick in the pants for everyone else. Now they're actually trying to make good products, and competitors are addressing their failings and adapting what they can from Apple's lead. That's how it should have worked, even if the iPhone never existed, but it just didn't. Even Windows Mobile, while still painful to use, is at least easier to look at these days.
But Android has the advantage of youth, and none of the baggage of middle age.
Drama much? The iPhone is "middle-aged"? What does that make RIM/Blackberry? A pensioner?
In the past, I have asserted that social popularity trumps technical superiority. Beta was superior to VHS and yet VHS won. Why? It was more popular... some would argue that it was more popular because porn was not allowed on Beta. Whatever the case, VHS was more popular and so it won.
iPhone is ridiculously popular. I don't care to go into why it is popular, but I will say I don't fully understand it because I tend to measure things by a different set of metrics than non-nerds. Whatever the cause of its popularity, iPhone will not be toppled as "king" of whatever market it rules with attack/smear ads and it won't be toppled by technical superiority or versatility. It might be toppled by convenience if that were possible and it would have to be convenient to leave it behind and/or migrate from it.
iPhone isn't just a phone. It's a hand-held computer with software applications that people use. In the past, moving from one phone to another was a matter of exporting data and importing that same data into the next phone. iPhone has applications for which there may not be equals on other phones. iPhone has applications that many have spent significant amounts of money on and people aren't willing to dump things like that so easily.
Another means of entrenchment iPhone enjoys is the connection it has with a person's identity. In much the same way people build self esteem rooting for their favorite teams in sports, the iPhone enjoys a strong fan base.
Microsoft calls what they have "critical mass." Microsoft isn't getting toppled because they have critical mass. Other reasons don't play into the current state of Microsoft nearly as much as that. People are not happy with Microsoft, but not unhappy enough to move to something else.
iPhone has not achieved critical mass, but many of the factors that contribute to the state of critical mass are present in iPhone and it is certainly moving in that direction.
Still, the iPhone doesn't rule in the way the hype and attention would seem to suggest. A recent trip through an airport showed me that Blackberry outnumbers iPhone 10 to 1. That's just an estimate I pulled out of my ass, but it's probably not far off. iPhone is limited by its exclusivity to AT&T (in the U.S.) and many people aren't interested enough in iPhone to change their carrier, but since the odds are that their non-AT&T carrier will carry an iPhone competitor, people are more inclined to give those competitors a try. Provided that the alternatives are good enough to capture an audience the way iPhone has (and that's not likely in my opinion) the iPhone's primary weakness can be exploited successfully.
To be clear, the primary weakness of the iPhone is its exclusivity to AT&T. It limits its growth potential and its flexibility. There are other factors contributing to its weaknesses, but its close ties with and influence under AT&T are at the very least holding it back and quite likely to be the most significant factor that will lead to its death.
You are right. But just because Motorola designed the phone, doesn't mean google had nothing to do with it...This is as much a google device as it is Motorola.
And here you've summarized the problem without stating it.
The iPhone is one company's product: Apple. Really it's one person's phone: Steve's.
And that is why it'll be better: because Steve will fire anyone who makes a phone less than he wants.
Google will enable a superior phone. Moto will fail to deliver. But I hope that someone else delivers. I really dislike the iPhone closed platform.
I bought the original Razr when it just came into market. It was a great phone. Beautifully designed, sleek and stylish even by today's standards.
I had one for a few years also. It was everything everyone claims Apple products are - style with little substance.
As you noted, the software was ghastly. But frankly I had issues with the hardware alone as well.
The buttons, were the worst I ever had on the phone as far as being easy to type. I was always missing numbers with those damn slanted keys with hardly any feedback as to where you were.
But the worst sin, was making a flip phone with BUTTONS ON THE SIDE. This totally eliminated the advantage of the clamshell where you couldn't accidentally hit buttons. I hung up on people pulling the phone from my pocket and often slightly changed settings getting it out.
It did feel good in the hand when talking or just holding it but like I said they had issues with both hardware and software.
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No one gives a shit except geeks who've never actually tried an iPhone keyboard for more than 4 seconds, and hence haven't discovered you can type faster on it than with a physical one.
2 reasons why a touchscreen keyboard is unsuitable for me:
1. no tactile feedback. I'm afraid I like to be able to feel the keys before I press them so I know my finger is in the right place.
2. I want to be able to see what's on the screen without a virtual keyboard covering it up.
I'll admit that (1) might be something that I would learn to do without if I used an iPhone all the time, but no amount of practice is going to prevent (2) from being a problem - I get an 80x25 terminal window on my phone, which I use for doing things like remotely administering servers; reducing the visible area of that terminal to 3 or 4 lines so that I can fit a keyboard on the screen would make it very unusable. Sure, most people aren't using their phones for administering servers, but this is a major reason for me buying a smartphone since it means I can avoid carrying a laptop around most of the time.
When will you iPhone fanboys get it into your head that a single design of device *never* suits everyone - just because you find a design choice to be ok doesn't mean that everyone else will. Choice is good.
100,000 apps. Seriously, it's *that* important.
I imagine that Symbian has well over 100,000 apps. Most of them are utter shit. Raw numbers are meaningless - if there were 100,000 _good_ apps then that would be something worth shouting about, but that's not the case.
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Why is the iPhone not dominant in the land they term "Asia"?
In Japan, the iPhone is now #1 in market share for smartphones.
In China, they actually don't sell it at all
Don't you answer your own question? Japan isn't all of asia, it's a fucking small part of asia. And China probably sums up the situation in a large part of asia.
The thing is that Apple support for other parts the the USA is kinda crappy. We in Europe got the iPhone waaay after the US to.
It's not dominant there, doesn't matter why it's not, though yes, Apple probably got themselves to blame for the lack of success there. (The same goes for Europe, it has only been around for a short time here, if it had been around for as long as it has in the US it would have an even bigger market share.)
Kinda everyone which are somewhat geeky/young/trendy around me seem to get the iPhone.
And here in Örebro, Sweden, we don't have any fancy Apple stores, we don't have any retailers which actually "belong" to Apple and can help you out where Apple themselves might had put in some extra effort, heck a year or two ago we even didn't had a store which sold Apple computers.
The Apple (buyer) experience is probably very different in the US compared to the rest of the world.
The HTC Magic is however frankly a crap device. On paper it has good specs, but it's a generation too slow for the OS and it's not really that nice.
Disclaimer: I own one.
Android was never going to compete on the first generation devices. The new generation - starting with the Motorola Droid - will be the ones that start to demonstrate the platform to its full potential.
It'll be interesting to see how well it does. Me, I'm skipping Android for a generation and going n900..