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Steve Jobs Lashes Out At Android
Ponca City writes "Steve Jobs doesn't usually make a guest appearance on Apple's post-earnings conference calls with analysts, but this time he made an exception, attacking Google for marketing its operating system as 'open' versus Apple's 'closed' iOS. 'Google loves to characterize Android as "open" and iOS and iPhone as "closed." We find this a bit disingenuous, and clouding the real difference between our two approaches,' said Jobs. 'Android is very fragmented. Many Android [manufacturers], including the two largest, HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The user's left to figure it out. Compare this to iPhone, where every handset works the same.' Jobs stated that the real debate is between 'fragmented versus integrated' and which is better for the consumer. 'When selling to users who want their devices to just work, we believe integrated will trump fragmented every time. And we also think our developers can be more innovative if they can target a singular platform rather than a hundred variants.' Jobs also criticized the Android Marketplace, pointing out that there are at least three other app stores being launched by vendors, causing confusion for users and work for developers. 'This is gonna be a mess for both users and developers,' Jobs said. 'Contrast this with Apple's integrated App Store, which offers users the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone.'"
Didn't Dodsworth from Tweetdeck say that he had only two guys on the Android port, and fragmentation wasn't really an issue?
Jailbreak your iPhone and install what you want.
Re-Rom your Android and install what you want.
What's the difference?
iStuff just works until you want to do something Steve hasn't pre-approved. At which point it just doesn't work.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"When selling to users who want their devices to just work, we believe integrated will trump fragmented every time. And we also think our developers can be more innovative if they can target a singular platform rather than a hundred variants."
Integrated vs fragmented. He's just trying to redefine the terms in his favor.
Open > Closed
vs
Integrated > Fragmented
Well done Steve.
I'm surprised fragmentation is his choice of argument against Android. There are several things iOS does better than Android, but it's getting harder and harder to develop for iOS because of fragmentation. Hell, it used to be called iPhone OS, not iOS, but now you have to make sure your code works on previous generation iPhones, the 4's retina display, the iPad, and the iPod Touch. Resolution differences, support for multitasking, and camera differences are all getting more difficult to manage!
'Changing the subject'.
"Folks have been saying your platform seems a bit proprietary and closed."
"Hey, how about them White Sox?"
"Your platform might be proprietary and closed."
"Yeah, well so is your mother!"
"Your platform is proprietary and closed."
"Oh yeah? Well, you just must not like having a good experience with your phone."
The problem is that all the more reasonable responses might paint them into a corner where they have to offer an option for a sandbox for a more open use of their platform - and their strategy precludes that as an option. So, like with elections where offering a valid option to voters is too risky (to your various monied interests), insulting the other option becomes the rule of the day.
Ryan Fenton
Hate to get all Stallman on you, but any definition of open that doesn't include "make install" is rather weak.
Log in or piss off.
The tweet is FUD... He missed the most important part.. How do you install this on a Droid or most other
Android devices? You need to root it just like you do to jailbreak a iPhone.
Android devices are far from open.. Don't believe the hype... My hope is for
a Ubuntu tablet.. Maybe that will actually be open...
Yes, because people have proven that having more than one drug store, supermarket, or fast food chain inevitably disorients them and fouls up their lives. Oh, wait.
I really do like my Apple products, but not for the reasons Jobs pushes; more like in spite of his ideas. I'd love another store, particularly one where Jobs Judeo-Christian mores aren't pushed upon me; or, conversely, if Apple's store stopped insisting that apps have to work they way they think they should, or that apps "can't duplicate functionality." I'm hugely fond my my iPad, but the idea that it would be less useful to me if there were more than one app store available to me... that's just wrong.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
How is one supposed to use Android without the phone? You can't evaluate Android independent of its use on a particular piece of hardware.
And the distribution and marketing model of Android guarantees the carrier and phone manufacturer the ability to do whatever they please. Android strikes a blow for software freedom while grievously wounding network freedom. If you are a tinkerer the you'll benefit from the open OS, Google and Motorola certainly do, they get free bugfixes from users all over the world! But if you are a non-hacking end user Android is just another carrier and manufacturer straight-jacket. Android is a phone company's handmaiden.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Great that you can alter Android's kernel. Too bad you can't just install it on whatever Android phone you want to.
Jobs was only trying to change the subject here. The subject was open vs. non-open platform. Jobs quickly turned the conversation to "Android is very fragmented", which does not speak about the topic of open vs. closed. It really shows how scared he is of Android, because he can't talk his way out of the fact that the iPhone is one of the most heavily restricted software/hardware platforms in the world. The conversation isn't really about 'fragmented vs. integrated' - users don't care, but they do care when they can't run software they want to run, and that is where Jobs is trying to change the subject.