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XML Co-Founder Joins Google, Blasts iPhone
XML co-founder Tim Bray has taken the job of 'Developer Advocate' at Google. Don't other companies call that position 'Evangelist?' Because he sure doesn't mince words against the iPhone in his first sermon: 'It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger.
XML vs. iPhone. I can't think of a better metaphor for "open but convoluted" vs. "closed but useable."
This is not a work-related "convenient opinion" of his. He's been critical of Apple's walled-garden approach to development for years, and an Android advocate since he got an Android phone in 2008 (see http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/12/18/Android-Diary for his chronicles using and programming it).
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Just like the rest of us he can choose to buy, or not buy, an iPhone or any other Apple or non-Apple product.
... yet ;-)
We're all adults here and if he doesn't like Apple's rules about software of the iPod/iPhone/iPad then he can choose not to get one. It's as simple as that.
The government isn't requiring us all to get iProducts
Tim Bray bought his *first* smartphone in December 2008 and declared it the best he's ever owned:
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/12/...
Maybe if he had tried 3 or 4 other phones and then settled on Android, his opinion would have weight.
This guy had never owned a "fancy phone" until 15 months ago and now he's an expert? Seriously Google, is this the best you can do?
Of course he's going to blast the iPhone. Google needs to de-trone the iPhone as the market leader in advanced phones otherwise they run the risk of becoming irrelevant in the future in the same way that Microsoft did in the cloud (for lack of a better term).
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
Another way to look at it is that iPhone provides a solid single platform that developers can concentrate on features rather than UI and input differences.
XML was "founded"? What is it, a city? An institution?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger.
i create the apps... i fear nothing.
the employees of google are presumptuous AND wrong.
Tim's critical of software patents, but his position is that there's just an implimentation problem - with good tweaking it could work. Kinda disappointing that he's not pushing for abolition. Surprising too given his experience in web dev and XML. Related info:
swpat.org is a publicly-editable wiki - help in expanding this info would be very welcome and useful.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
"The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger." -- There's an app for that.
I guess I'll start caring about google's phones when they decide to target men AND women. Their ads are clearly for men and it's not like I can convince my wife to get one. It's just too convenient having the same phone.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
With the iPhone and iPad, Apple has become the Big Brother it railed against in the Superbowl ad of 1984.
As an owner of many Apple computers from the Apple ][ all the way to today, it's thoroughly depressing to have watched this happen. But I guess Apple's always been schizophrenic about opennness. One one hand you have Woz distributing schematics, the developer's signatures burnt into the Mac's first motherboard, embracing of open-sourced software & development tools, lack of copy protection on their OS, replacing drm music with watermarking, etc. But then you've got them suing Franklin & Pystar, suing HTC, their absurdly paternalistic App market, a closed-down iPad, etc. I guess there's always been a bit of hypocrisy and self-contradiction with Apple.
But when push comes to shove, I'm growing more convinced with the iPhone/iPad they really do see the future as being closed & proprietary. Google is the athlete running in swinging the hammer. And maybe it's Jobs' face on the big screen?
I guess Apple II isn't forever.
Oh, so this is the guy who designed that bloated markup language. Yeah, I can't wait to not care any less what his opinion of a phone is.
He's right, though...
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
Exactly - it's just like that Richard Dawkins guy - he's always talking about religion, but he's an atheist! How can he possibly know anything about religion if he doesn't believe in god!??!?!
With this, my opinion of Google is now changing. I was a very large fan of Google and thought they were doing a fine balancing act between "making money" and "doing the 'right' thing." This, however, is turning things considerably ugly and is painting Google in a very unpleasant light. Mud-slinging is never pretty and often makes the slinger look worse than the target.
In case Google has forgotten, Apple has a lot of fans. Outright insulting Apple in this way forces people to decide, Apple or Google, and Google might not like the choice people make. After all, switching away from Apple means buying all new hardware and software. Switching away from Google just means typing in "www.bing.com".
I know which choice I'm going to be inclined to make in the future...
But at least it's the same version of the walled garden for all purchasers/users:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/android-version-confusion/
Sig this!
While verifying my sources just now, I found that Tim is, since February 2010, against software patents. Glad to hear it.
I've updated the wiki.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
This post is completely wrong WRT the mouse.
And I was playing DRM-free mp3 music long before there was an iPod or iTunes.
Apple might be 'frist' in some things, but not much...
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
Hey, can I do that too?
When they make a movie of this, I hope they get Samuel Jackson to play Tim Bray. Of course they'll have to change a few of the words, and give him a revolver...
Apple is doing exactly what the slashdot community rallied against Microsoft for doing, i.e. the digital wallet, multiple music stores, music players
Can you explain this point a little more? None f it made much sense to me.
1) You could always use non-DRM music from other stores on the iPod, from launch.
2) There has never been an Apple "digital wallet" like the points system MS uses on Live (though MS is not using that for Windows Phone 7 Series).
3) Multiple music stores??? Why is that even a problem...
The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Microsoft had to have utter control of standards, and only begrudgingly worked with anything open. While Apple has worked beside and on top of many open technologies, which has benefited a ton of people (ZeroConf, Webkit, CLANG, etc.).
I'm sorry but the parallels between Apple and Microsoft are weak at best, because in general Apple's approach strengthens the technology sector for everyone. Would HTML5 video really be pushed as hard as it has been without Apple helping to shove?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
More like MS is the next DEC
Why bother
is that most users prefer a "walled garden" even if they don't know that's what it is. Most users only want to do a few things on their phone such as browse the web, read e-mail, text, and make calls. Most users want a dead simple, easy to understand interface. Like iTunes or hate it, it makes setting up your phone, managing media and applications brain-dead simple even while it is somewhat limiting.
Tim can rail against the iPhone all he wants to, but at the end of the day, all I have to say to him is check the current market share scoreboard. It's going to take more than a developer evangelist shitting on the competition to increase Android's market share.
Thus far the consumer has chosen, and they have chosen iPhone by a significant margin. There's a reason why the Droid is buy one get one free on Verizon, and it's not because it's outselling the iPhone.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Something about this strikes me, as not very Google like.
I can figure out both the advantages/disadvantages of Apples model.
Does Google really need to hire someone to smear Apples model in Public.
I don't own any Apple product, so I don't think I qualify as an Apple fanboy, but I do respect the work of both companies.
But this really does lower Google a notch in my eyes, it is the kind of thing I expect Steve Balmer to say about the competition.
He just wants the sex and violence on a phone that he likes, and OS that he likes
...in the fact that Apple has been a big pusher of XML-based formats - it pervades most of their application frameworks and is extensively supported in their APIs.
Do you not, for one, welcome your new ass-blasting overlords?
A hedge maze, into which consumers can become easily lost. They need to figure out the versioning strategy quickly...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But then again, apple fanboi's will always try to herd a stray iSheep back to the iFlock. There's even an app for that!
Or maybe they just get tired of anti-fanboi idiots making statements that seem to equate:
"Um, you're not forced to buy it. You're perfectly free to buy, enjoy, and develop for something else."
with
"Apple fanboi's will always try to herd a stray iSheep back to the iFlock."
For some reason, for a lot of geeks, it's never enough to just like something else that's not Apple. They have to LOUDLY TELL EVERYBODY ELSE THAT THEY SHOULD NOT LIKE APPLE TOO and this despite the fact that nobody's ever been forced to buy Apple.
Tweet, tweet.
Yet another technology tool calling another technology outfit names. Puh-lease...this shit just gets old. And the more these types of "employees" spew shit, the stupider they appear to me regardless of how many PhD's they have. Make a product that doesn't suck donkey ballz and you'll get my attention (and possibly my business). Otherwise, just STFU already. This world sucks enough as it stands without having to listen to yet another moron "evangelist" throw mud. Grow up already all of you. That includes you too, Apple.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
Googling iPhone sucks...
Results 1 - 10 of about 11,100,000 for iPhone sucks. (0.33 seconds)
Somehow, i dont think that is a good way to measure how much something sucks.
Don't other companies call that position 'Evangelist?'
Evangelists preach to developers, advocates listen to them. Since Google basically gives away most of its tools and platforms, it does make rather more sense to ask developers what they want, rather than tell them.
Just so nobody doubts my Google-skeptic creds: Google can afford to do this because they make so much money off their ad revenues they can afford to run almost every other business at a loss with profits postponed to an extremely hypothetical future. And even so, their stockholders would never stand for it — if they had any say in the matter.
Dunno wintermute I have just moved my wife from her ubuntu laptop to a macbook pro running macos and the challenges seem much the same, even after spending money on commercial software for the mac. There ae bugs on both sides, but macos lacks the consistency brought by dpkg.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
More like MS is the next DEC
I don't think its that bad. The next IBM, surely.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Prob because you are migrating. Also I've found IMHO that its worse for geeks because we're kinda set in our ways and assumptions. Finally of course YMMV I don't know whether you have specific requirements, maybe you got the one in a thousand dud unit, etc. etc. etc.
Personally my macbook has required less troubleshooting than any PC I've ever owned or used, once I got used to the apple conventions. If I didn't play video games I would go all OSX at home
Umm...
By making a product people want to buy. If you've failed to grasp this simple concept your not going to have much luck in any market. Android users do not tolerate simple applications for $1, nor do these applications make any money even in Apples walled garden. If you want to make money you have to provide enough functionality for a program to be at least $10.
The vast majority of Iphone developers aren't making enough money to pay the US$99 a year fee let alone recoup the cost of their time.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
just what the point of this hire is? Apple-bashing aside, is it just to put the shiny open-source face on Google? That didn't exactly save his previous employer, who also hired him for apparent PR value and where he accomplished nothing of sufficient significance to merit inclusion on his Wikipedia bio.
Perhaps if Apple is very, very lucky, Google will hire Jonathan Schwartz too.
I cant leave him, I know he beats me but that's OK because he says he loves me.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Your google-fu is weak old man.
you need to use quotations marks.
"xml sucks" produce 21,300 results
"iphone sucks" produces 30,900 results.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
No.. I like itunes. I enjoy it as a player/library. It has a resume feature so I can listen to all my 4 hour long Opie and Anthony shows and Ron and Fez of course... horse.
I like when he beats me... I enjoy it.
Seriously, I do think itunes is pretty good at how it manages/organizes tunes etc. I'm not a fan of the format dictatorship but... I can live with apple lossless if i cant have flac.
I think Tim Bray's rant on the iPhone is rather ill-considered & rather short-sighted.
Why do trolls post anonymously? I mean, if their goal is to create negative karma, shouldn't they want that recorded somewhere?
Property is theft.
While I agree that iPhone is mainly a shiny, overpriced toy, I that's going a bit far.
You are welcome on my lawn.
its the first time i heard of this guy, but i like him already. never before the issue with apple was so bluntly and concisely put as below :
It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger.
He can do advocating for me alright.
Read radical news here
back 1.5 or so years ago, ANY retort or comment that criticized apple would be harshly modded down. regardless of its content. however after all the happenings of the last few years, its not as such anymore. so we can say that, at least the apple fans in slashdot, came a long way. probably because they are more tech savvy to know what is right and what is wrong than the regular 'hip' apple fan.
Read radical news here
"xml sucks" produce 21,300 results
"iphone sucks" produces 30,900 results.
And considering that these numbers are close, and that the overwhelming majority of lay people have no idea whatsoever what XML is, but these same lay people would have to be living in a cave not to know what the iPhone is, we must conclude that XML triumphs over the iPhone in suckitute.
Just gonna burn some karma here since you've unfortunately been modded 0 flamebait:
As much as I enjoy tinkering w/ open source and recognise its massive contribution, why is it so hard for freetards to grasp the key issue:
For normal users (or even geeks who don't have the time/energy to care), walled garden that "just works" beats open solution that "sorta works" (even 'mostly') 10 times out of 10
You sir, are absolutely right, no matter how much we people who read slashdot, we denizens of the extreme right hand tail of the user bell curve, wish it weren't so.
And considering that these numbers are fairly far apart (over 30% more results for the Iphone) and the number of people who use the Iphone compared to XML (at best 30 million users vs over a billion internet connected people) the Iphone is several orders of magnitude greater in suckitude.
Proven by Science(TM).
Now onto other news, in what Scientists are describing as "pretty gay", any data can be sufficiently manipulated to show whatever the author wants with the simple addition of unsubstantiated or obscure assumptions.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I don't believe "smart phones" is a meaningful market category. First, my 2006 Motorola L7 SLVR supports email, plays mp3s, and plays java games. Second, all these fancy phones are distinguished mostly by who buys them, not their features.
Nokia and RIM produce smart phones with large keyboards that balance the need for sending real emails with portability. A casual consumer simply doesn't need that big ass keyboard because a casual consumer doesn't lose a $200k contract by sending a short terse text message. I feel these are more properly called business phones, which also well represents their extra features, like tethering, vpn, voip, etc.
Apple and Google produce smart phones with large touch screens for entertainment. Any road warrior salesman type would be stupid for depending upon a touch screen keyboard, even the new blackberry storm 2. You know, Apple's iPhone hype might even have contributed to the recession. :) I feel these are more properly called entertainment phones, again well represents the available applications.
Apple's iPhone did surprise the industry by proving the profitability of high end entertainment phones, which prompted the Blackberry Storm 2 among others, and surely changed Android's direction. Apple's iPhone has not altered the needs of business users. If anything, Apple has removed business oriented applications, and push out the iPod Touch as a high end entertainment platform for travelers. You almost surely know people who own both an iPod touch for entertainment and a Blackberry for work.
p.s. Nokia largely control the smartphone market outside the U.S.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Nokia takes an interesting flexible form factor approach where their highest end phones are designed explicitly excluding both the business and entertainment market. For example, the N95 let Nokia debug technology among more forgiving early adopters, before releasing the N97 for business users. I'd call these early adopter or fanboy phones.
I personally own an N900 myself, a phone so raw Nokia won't even call it a phone. I don't mind subsidizing Nokia's R&D though because the phone does wicked shit like run pdflatex, R, python, glom (gui sql client), x11vnc, sshd, etc. A few crazy mother fuckers even run the gimp!
You can easily see where Nokia is taking the N900 however, a unified smartphone platform well optimized for both business and entertainment functionality, and provides an easy porting target for apps developed on other platforms. We should ultimately expect two Maemo/MeeGo phone, a thin touchscreen phone and a thick N97 form factor phone, both offering the same high level phone features, native applications, and Android compatibility layer.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Um, actually I think you're thinking of the ads for the Droid, which is actually just a particular Android device made by Motorola and marketed by Verizon. It was the one with the really macho ads everywhere.
I don't know what Google was thinking allowing one of their OS users to brand their device the Droid, total marketplace confusion.
The Palm Pre is Verizon's smartphone for women:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/04/verizon-advertising-says-droid-is-for-men-pre-is-for-women-vid/
There are more ways to pay for something than with cash.
Android is only open for carriers, not users. Basically this idiot is saying that he prefers that end-users and developers be walled within a slow Java VM (Virtual Machine) ghetto on the Android platform, verses having end-user and developers walled within a ghetto of limited, but fast natively compiled and executed, selection of iTunes Apps that Apple approves at their sole discretion. Keep in mind that many of Android's prebundled apps/utilities are compiled into machine code, since the Java VM is nothing more than 3rd party app ghetto . I will only believe that the Android VM Java is decent and not an app ghetto, when all of the Android core applications, including the phone app, are solely written in it. Gee, I miss those days when computer operating systems use to have an open execution model that allowed anyone to write, distribute, and install applications as compiled machine code without any restrictions.
I think the folks attacking Apple have as much of a track record of being consistently and intentionally wrong. Case in point.
For example, both my Mother and my Aunt, in their 60's, want an iPad. They are not fangrrrls. One has a Mac and would prefer the pad, the other doesn't use PC's a lot but would like a simple, portable device for email and internet, and easily sharing photos of my family (since she lives in Europe).
As for the walled garden, I'd say the motives are mixed. I (and many people I know) actually like walled gardens, in some circumstances, if it helps remove bullshit from my life. Not all circumstances, of course.
I do agree the blocking of iPad -> iPhone tethering is crap, but I can't tether on AT&T as it is.
-Stu
Apple wants to control the world's premium hardware devices (and how they are used).
Google wants to control the world's information.
Only one of these visions frightens me.
-Stu
It's only guys like Beck who are talking about Obama as a messiah.
Reworking the line from Steve Ballmer. Everybody seems to be reminiscing about the days when this stuff was open, but it was open because that's what people wanted to buy! Steve Jobs could be a nasty guy like people pass him off (I don't know him, so I reserve judgement), but what he is good at is reading markets. He was good then, and he's good now. Steve Jobs doesn't care about openness more than closed-ness. The man wants a product that sells, he's a businessman to the core (and a damn good one at that). If it's open stuff, he'll make it, but right now he doesn't see it that way, and I'm inclined to agree with him. The typical consumer he's targeting wants an integrated product suite that "just works". Openness takes a backseat to dealing with the alternative (to your typical Mac user, IMO!!). You can't really hold it against the user, or Jobs, for creating a product and acting as such. I'm sure you can come up with other reasons to hate them though.. That Mac user loves his VW, lattes at Starbucks, thick black rimmed square glasses and listening to Moby. Steve Jobs is running a company that, apparently, goes nuts in court over patents and control of its OS.
Microsoft was sued by 20 State Attorneys General for violating antitrust laws.
I don't think there's much of a comparison between Apple and Microsoft.
No! You don't get it! That's how deep the conspiracy goes! Either Apple has brainwashed state governments so they don't see that Apple's also violating the same antitrust laws, or fanbois have infiltrated those governments! There's no other possible explanation!
Wake up sheeple and see the truth before it's too late and we have iGovernment!
Tweet, tweet.
On my smartphone I want
-quality and security vetted apps -just works
-apps with simple, quality-assessed human factors ui design
-relatively few apps to choose from in each category
-performance and battery-life vetted apps
-a single simple way to pay for non-free apps or content
These properties are way more important to me than
total freedom for developers on the platform.
If android can achieve my requirements, and also have
a "scratch" area for unvetted apps to be browsed and tried
out in secure sandboxes, well, cool, but the onus is on
them to show that they have a way of making it easy to
limit yourself to finding and running apps that have
some standards. Yeah, I know. iFart, But at least its easy
to use.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
At the store, Roark had never been told that his HTC Eris has Android 1.5, nicknamed “Cupcake.” Until told by a reporter, he had no idea what features he’s missing as a result. For instance, free turn-by-turn navigation is available in the latest version, Android 2.1 (”Eclair”), but is only available to Cupcake users for $10 a month from Verizon.
Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/android-version-confusion/#ixzz0iJv1DstU
The carriers have been fucking us for years. Half the talk on forums is how to uninstall the shitty bloatware that carriers install on the android phones. Hey, at least with an android phone you *can* do it, unlike every other motorola, nokia slow-fest.
The iphone is the best phone i've ever had. It has an alarm that works, and I can set for only weekdays. How hard is that???? It has a battery life of more than a few hours (I'm looking at you, my Samsung windows mobile phone). It has a headset with a NORMAL HEADSET JACK. It charges by plugging into my USB. How is it that such simple pleasures make this the best phone ever? Because all the others are corrupted bloatware pocket fillers, courtesy of the "carriers".
The iPhone works because Apple took on the carriers. The various Droid market is failing because carriers are worse than M$. Between you and google is a carrier. Good luck with that!
I visited a meditation garden with my family. It was a very beautiful place. Our children were excited and making quite a bit of noise. A polite lady asked us if we could keep our children quiet because people were meditating. We agreed. It had walls, this garden. And a gate. We will be going back.
It is totally different for Apple to not allow developers to duplicate functionality of existing applications (ostensibly to avoid marketplace confusion) than if Google (hypothetically) were to use its trademark on the word Android to prevent users of Android from naming their devices confusingly similar names.
It's time to talk about things the way they are.
Dear
Slashdot as a group is ALWAYS against what you are for.
Slashdot is filled with hippies/gun nuts.
Slashdot is filled with rabid republicans/demented democrats.
Slashdot is filled with MS apologists/BSD freaks/Apple fanboys. They are all seen as silly by the enlightened linux users who are well above this kind of shameful name calling what are after all their fellow human beings even if they are obviously less evolved.
Slashdot is filled with Trek nerds/People that hate Trek for being nerdy/Hate trek for not being nerdy enough.
Slashdot is filled with virgins/people who lie about having had sex.
Oh and the best way to make a claim that slashdot is against you? Claim you are going to be modded down for saying it. Then when you are modded up, don't change your mind.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think it is like with all new technologies that settel in the consumer market.
First, there are the early adopters who can - an take pride in the fact that they can - manipulate and fix those technologies.
As that technology becomes more common - more and more users are
a) not willing to invest a huge amount of time to be able to use this technology correctly and
b) dont want to rely an an early adopter to do so.
As the technology further matures, the neccessety - and with it the possibility - to maipulate and fix this technology by yourself disappears.
The early adopters loose the possibility of beeing more than just "dumb users" and feel caged because that technology has been kind of locked down.
But for the users that have by now become the majority it is most convenient to use it without having to get into it too deeply.
The early adopters find a niche (product ) where they still can test their technical skills on and the overall consumer is just happy this easy-to-use piece of technology exists.
That said:
- assuring no app can do bad things through strict quality controll
- strict guidelines for userinterface design
- limit external interfaces and provide a standard way of data exchange
sounds to me like being a good thing for serving the average user.
Best example in a while.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
All you need to ask yourself is why did he even say the word "iPhone" at all? He just got hired by Google. WTF has iPhone got to do with anything? Seriously, ask yourself that. None of the answers are good for Google.
The misinformation was also very sad, since he is someone who has contributed mightily in the past. He should at least have the standards of a Gizmodo review. It was sad to see him say the Internet is locked down on iPhone when it is clearly not in any way locked down, nor is it proprietary like Microsoft or Adobe. It was also sad to see him say that iPhone has limited the conversation on the Internet when it's clearly drawn an even larger audience to the conversation, providing many people with the first Internet device that they could master, causing many people to discover text messaging or Twitter and so on for the first time. Not only that but these are the very first native app purchases and installs for many users. Also sad that he thinks the successful, popular, and malware-free iPhone App Store should change to be more like the fragmented, unpopular, malware-serving Android Market. And he clearly doesn't understand that App Store is not the only place to get iPhone apps, it is only 1 of 2 app platforms on iPhone ... App Store is entirely optional. The other platform is totally open, totally unmanaged, totally unmediated, uses open API's, and apps are installed from any arbitrary HTTP server. The alternative is there already if App Store is not for you. Why does it bother the Nerd Police so much that users on iPhone have their own choice of either managed or unmanaged apps? With all that has happened with Windows malware and botnets, why is it so important that *phone users* should be exposed to a native malware risk?
But this is the guy who said he would never type on a virtual keyboard and how awful iPhone was for having that, how stupid the users were for not being able to type on the device (he imagined) until he got a G1 with a much worse virtual keyboard than iPhone and said it was OK, he could live with it. So it's actually not surprising to see him talking out of his ass rather than actually trying the gear, learning about it, finding out about it.
Imagine if Google had hired a hardware chief instead, and announced they were making a "true Google phone" like so many have asked for. I think that would have been a much more interesting move, and they could have done it without saying "iPhone." Well, maybe not. Too bad.
One reason Android beat out Openmoko was because Google was willing to make a platform that carriers could turn into a walled garden if they wanted to, while Openmoko was designed to NOT be locked down.
Sure, technically Google isn't doing evil here. They're just enabling AT&T to do it.
Move her to an iPad - that's what the future of computers will look to non-nerds, whether us nerds like it or not.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Whether you are for Apple or for Google, you will eventually get tired of the conversation. So here is how to add some spice.
"Well, I mean OS X and Android are both Unix derivitaves, so as long as we're supporting open source I'm all for it."
Hilarity ensues on many levels.
Find a better, more well-written opinion in this thread and I'll be impressed.
iPhone users have a choice as do all smartphone users. Many iPhone users selected the iPhone knowing that they'd be locked into the App Store and the rules that apply.
Those who preach the "open is better" mantra at all costs obviously don't speak for the public. For the most part, Apple's customers seem quite happy with the iPod, the iPhone and other "closed system" devices. Sadly, Tim Bray seems to have joined this crowd and has done so without critical evaluation of Android.
As you pointed out, Google needs to make advances in phone technology to win--not copy nor denigrate the choices other manufacturers have made. If they feel they have a superior alternative to RIM, Apple or WinMO then let customers speak. So far, RIM and Apple lead the pack.
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
Please don't mix technique and business: XML is not a company, and contributing to the creation of a technology is not "co-founding" it.
Tim Bray is one of the creators of XML, like Vint Cerf can be said to be the inventor of TCP, but they are not "co-founders" of the said technologies.
You sir, are absolutely right, no matter how much we people who read slashdot, we denizens of the extreme right hand tail of the user bell curve, wish it weren't so.
I have to agree. I switched from my RAZR to a Droid because I was at first more interested in the better hardware (camera, flash, screen size, etc.). Two days of using the Droid convinced me to get rid of it and switch to an iPhone (3GS, 32GB). I am much happier. The hardware is obviously not as good, but there's simply no comparison on the base software. I'm hoping that the Droid phone I got was simply defective (perhaps a memory failure) because basic apps like Contacts crashed frequently. The usability of the iPhone is also just plain better, much better.
I paid quite a bit to break my AT&T contracts, sign with Verizon, and switch back just to get to the iPhone from (in my experience) the crappy Droid. And, it was worth it. (Disclaimer, I was able to convince Verizon to drop most of the charges due to certain Florida laws, so all in all I was out about US$150 for the experience.)
Google and I have been a plausible match for a long time. Web-centric, check. Search, check. Open-source, check. The list goes on.
Unstable, check. Virus ridden, check. Poorly documented, check. Good enough but cheaper than the best, oh you better believe that's a check.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Ogg has almost no commercial support.
Guitar Hero and Rock Band series are among the many video games that use Ogg Vorbis audio.
iTMS files are AAC audio and fairplay is gone.
Let me know when fairplay is gone from video.
iTMS
It's called "iTunes Store" now, and everything that isn't the M in what iTMS used to stand for still has digital restriction management.
"Unfortunately" modded to flamebait? The guy just called everyone who values freedom and choice over convenience "freetards". That won't exactly endear anyone to his point of view.
If I complained that people were giving up their long-term interests (an app market where apps can't be pulled at the whim of a single company, general openness, etc.) in favor of short-term usability and shininess, I'd have a point and we'd have the beginning of a debate about the pros and cons of the Apple environment.
But if I did so while calling those people "Mactards" or "blowJobs" or "iDiots" or "smug self-satisfied latte-sipping black-turtleneck-wearing fuckwits", you bet your ass I'd be modded flamebait.
No, it fails 10 out 10 times when you're a developer who wants develop an app that isn't allowed (be it porn or whatever else isn't permitted inside the walled garden) or you're a user who wants to install such an application.
"The other platform is totally open, totally unmanaged, totally unmediated, uses open API's, and apps are installed from any arbitrary HTTP server." Did you write that with a straight face? Seriously, do you really believe that? "fragmented, unpopular, malware-serving Android Market" citation please.
"The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger..." and make a shitload of money.
We have to wait and see if they actually change their business model to fit the facts. If they don't it's just like DEC right around the time of the processor they designed.
Why bother
I'd argue Openmoko failed because they were too busy making shiny user interfaces to get the thing working.
It had nothing to do with the level of lock-down and everything to do with the thing not even covering the essentials of being a phone, let alone smartphone. Just the little things, like... say, making and receiving phone calls reliably, or being able to have it suspend and actually work when it woke up.
The hardware wasn't so bad, but they seemed to think that being open source would magically provide them with functioning software.
It sounds an awful lot like the only difference is that Apple was happier to save money by using good technology that was developed outside of the company.
That's kind of true - but kind of not. Is there any other company on the planet putting as much money into Webkit development as Apple? Possibly Google, but even there I'm not sure. Apple also contributes a ton of code to other projects, and open sources wholly in-house develope libraries like ZeroConf and Grand Central.
Yes they leverage free things so they don't have to do as much work - but it doesn't mean they do no work, or that the work they do is not significant in scope and effort.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Were you buying licensed DRM free music in the United States before Steve Jobs asked the record companies to allow it?
That would be news to the record companies.
Why doesn't the android have USB- HOST mode?
Seriously, without that we can't build:
Light turn on gizmos.
Robotics
Cruise controls
TV remote controls
I just did a preliminary investigation of using Android for controlling something and there is no USB-host mode.
WTF Need USB HOST MODE
The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger.
last i checked, fear-mongering was pretty evil...
bad move, google.