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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.'"
Isn't this the same "Cathedral vs. the Bazaar" argument?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Yeah, right. iOS is about as fragmented as Android is. And the people I've talked to with iPhones older than version 4 are having real troubled with the latest version of iOS on their iPhone 3* phones - majorly slow is what I've heard.
While there is _some_ truth to Android not being as open as Google would lay claim to, it's certainly more open than iOS is, and when it comes t getting an app out, Android is the platform benchmark for letting anyone release an app. Apple's a joke in this area. I don't know how app distribution works on Blackberry/Windows Phone platforms, though.
You can not only release your own app on your own website, you can actually open your own Android app MARKETPLACE. Sorry, but that's a level of openness Apple can't and won't compete with.
That would be meaningful if I could put that into a usable device without voiding all of my carrier user agreements.
"Somewhere out there is a magical open android!"
"If it's not on my phone I don't care."
The problem with this as it relates to the market is that a vanishingly small percentage of the population would even know what cd means, much less make. These markets serve people that want to get stuff done (email, phone, text, post to websites/blogs/etc...) and are not remotely interested in using the device to geek out on it. They use the devices that allow them to do what they want while staying out of the way. My principle complaint of the Android devices when I had one was that a simple OS update meant reinstalling all of my apps! Why in the world would someone allow that to be shipped? I swore off Android at that point, but may look at it again some time in the future.
For now, iOS lets me do what I need to do without getting in the way or making me find the right libraries or compile anything. When I spend time compiling software for the iOS, I want it to do something new and perhaps make some money while doing it.
I have an HTC Evo since the day it was released. Since then, I've been through a few minor updates and a major release (Froyo). I have never had to reinstall apps and I've never had to worry about libraries or compiling anything at all. For that matter, I've never known anyone to have to compile anything for Android with the exception of a developer I know.
So, I don't know what phone or Android version you're running, but it can't be anything recent. I think your issues could be compared with someone bashing Ubuntu because way back when they ran Linux, they had to compile everything from source.
As for Apple, I have two iPod Touch units, one 3rd Gen and one 4th Gen. I've had to reinstall different software apps several times and had some just stop working after a time (don't know if an update caused the problems). Of course, when something stops working on the iPod/Phone, there's really nothing you can do except uninstall and reinstall and see if that fixes your issue. Other than that, well, just uninstall and hope you can get your money back if it's an app you paid for. Those issues were with the 3rd Gen. I can't really speak for the 4th Gen as it only worked for a couple of days before I had to send it back to Apple. Apple service was great, but I shouldn't of had to send the damn thing back in the first place. I didn't have to pay any money for the repair, but it did cost me several hours trying to figure out what was wrong + a trip to the UPS store to have it shipped back to Apple.
Oh, and don't even get me started on iTunes...
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Android takes the title of open for a number of reasons, including the fact that it's open source (not the crap manufacturers put on top, but Google's Android,) the market is more open, and the market isn't the only show in town. If Jobs wants to attack specific bad implementations that layer closed crap on top, I'll applaud him -- but you can't generalize that to every phone.
By your 1% definition, even gNewSense wouldn't be open if you put it in front of my grandmother.
This statement is false.
Wow, sounds similar to Nintendo's stance when Sony came out with the Playstation. Nintendo has a very tough hoop to jump through to get a game on their systems, while Sony has a pretty cheap license. Nintendo was first, and had a tight grip on the market until Sony's loose market PS came into town and dominated. The iPhone is like Nintendo in this sense; first of the new breed, and widely accepted. However, Android is quickly becoming a real threat to the market dominance that iPhone has.
But you could if you wanted to. No hardware manufacturer is taking specific steps to frustrate, disable, or lock down your ability to do it.
Both sides (as well as Windows and MacOS desktops) need to learn that it is not acceptable to lock me out of my own device.... under any circumstance.
It is not acceptable to encrypt any communication in a way that *** I *** as the owner of the device am refused from seeing what is sent. In other words, my device shall not be used to keep me out of the loop. Trust is between me and my device and me and any company I choose to deal with. Not between the company and my device.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
Yes, and Steve Jobs mentioned that as the only example of how fragmentation is an issue for development.
Very funny because the report he referred to was actually a praise to Android.
Big fail there. I would like to know if he said that due to ignorance or if he was just that bad at lying.
I think the real difference is "just work" vs "just work the way I want it to". There is certainly a market for "just work". There are enough people willing to conform their work habits to a device's paradigm to make a device manufacturer a very good living. Apple was successful at this, Microsoft less so, because Apple has an interface that's useful and intuitive and people enjoyed using the device. And Windows Mobile... well, that's a different article.
Jobs seems to have drawn the wrong conclusion from this -- that the primary success of the iphone is because every device works the same. The obvious argument to this is that I don't use every device, I only use the device I own, and it works the same every day. The real success of the iphone is that it provides a better experience. And it truly does. I'm surprised that Jobs appears to have forgotten this.
Android also provides a better experience, with the added wrinkle that you can choose the experience you want by choosing a different device and/or customizing the device you have. To people who want to bend a device to their workflow, instead of bending their workflow to a device, this has considerable appeal.
I think what Apple is missing out on is the customizable aspect of personal devices. And before you say it, this is not a nerd only thing. My 16 year old daughter reports that android is becoming more popular with her circle of friends partly because they *are* different (or can be made different) instead of everything having the exact same device with the exact same interface running the exact same apps. (Daughter turned down the iPhone for a Galaxy S and hasn't touched her iPod Touch since she got it.)
Jobs can continue to rant about conformity, fanbois and people who genuinely want a device that "just works" will continue to buy his devices, and he'll do really well. For the rest of us, there's Android.
But.... Listening to Jobs rave about everyone using exactly the same device, I can't help but flash back to that original Mac commercial in 1984. Walt Kelly was right.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
What good is open if it's just a line of bash(1)? Software openness is supposed to benefit everyone, not just the companies that sell you their paint-by-numbers no-source-available iterations of it. It's not like any of these products are any cheaper to the end user because the OS is open, or the choice in applications isn't really all that better because it's open. And you're really evading the main point, that this is an OS for the exploitation of vast untapped smartphone markets. People want mobile internet, and Android is happy to give it to them on the carrier's terms. Apple at least had the good sense to see the cellular networks as adversaries, and to prevent their interference in the transaction between the hardware vendor and the end user. But Android is obsequious to their will -- the OHA is little more than a proxy for cellular network providers and commodity handset manufacturers.
This is the pursuit of "open software" as a marketing bullet-point, and not as a thoroughgoing commitment to the freedom of users to do "what they want" with "their phone." Rubin's tweet really encapsulates Google's attitude toward openness. What he left out was:
Typical elite geek attitude that only people who know how to hack are entitled to the fullest benefits of computing.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Only on droid 2, droid 1 you just flash a rom that is already rooted on to the phone.
Oh, well, that totally invalidates his point about the droid 2...
Besides, given the Droid 2 is locked down, I think it safe to say that's what Motorola intended from the get-go. They just happened to fail with the Droid 1.
Android: I did a factory wipe of my phone. Android automatically downloaded my phones settings, extensive contact list etc from my Google account, including re-downloading apps from the market. My photos, videos were untouched on the SD card and automatically picked up by the gallery app. If I lost my cellphone I could equally recover all my personal data. Thank you Google for
iPhone: My friend did a full reset of his iPhone, it prompted him "Do you want to back up your iPhone?" he did this. While it backed up his settings. It did not back up his Apps nor his thousands of photos from recent holidays. Needless to say he was distraught and a bit like "So tell me about this Android thing?". Apple gets alot right, but gets other things catastrophically wrong.
Frankly I have heard so many stories like this and I've never had a single problem with my Android phones. In situations like this it's saved my bacon by respecting my data, and the completely painless syncing to Google is a delight. Every non-geek I know who's bought an Android is utterly happy.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Here are just some off the top of my head:
- Tethering (even on pre-2.2 devices and without rooting)
- replacement keyboards and input methods, including handwriting
- full replacements for built-in apps and dialogs (mail, calendar, camera, image browser, etc.)
- full Google Voice support
- apps that intercept calling (e.g., redirect some/all calls through calling cards or VoIP)
- speech recognition and text-to-speech, fully integrated into the OS
- OS task scheduling and context apps
- file and data sharing between apps, plus end user apps to manage that
- remote phone management
- third party app stores
- synchronization over wifi
- third party music and video stores
- in-device scripting and development
- third party VPN apps
- adult apps
Some iPhone apps try to provide this, but it's pretty much useless. For example, there is a speech recognition app and some handwriting recognition for iPhone, but you can't actually use it to input stuff in other applications.
As far as syncing things like contacts and calendars there is nothing that compares to mobile me. Data on all of my ios devices and macs (I have 5 devices to keep sync - iPhone iPad, home iMac, laptop and work Mac) syncs instantly. No need to even tell it what to do beyond entering my username and password. I've never seen any service/app combination from either Microsoft or Google that comes even close in that arena.
I've never really been interested in storing my documents on a remote webserver so google's apps don't really hold any interest for me.
As far as a holistic ecosystem goes.. Apple has nailed it.
Most cell phone users have a two year contract, meaning they only upgrade their phones every two years. I had a T-Mobile G1 and less than a year after its introduction it was obsolete for anyone but the hackers because even though the phone COULD run higher versions of this "open" Android, it was abandoned because frankly no one makes any money in free upgrades.
I've really only seen like, 1 or 2 Android handsets have more than one point release upgrade and with the rate of Android releases that's just asinine. Apple supported their original phone in OS updates for 3 years and it can still run the latest applications.
As a consumer, you know, the people who actually have the money, I won't buy another Android phone because A) I don't like to have to jump through hoops to get root on my phone (with iPhones it's a simple, automated process) and B) I'd like updates for a phone that can support them to actually be delivered upon instead of constantly buying a new piece of hardware.
"I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!"
-Jennifer Saunders as Edina Monsoon