Slashdot Mirror
Woz Says Android Will Dominate
cloudcreator writes "Woz [said] that Android smartphones, not the iPhone, would become dominant, noting that the Google OS is likely to win the race similarly to the way that Windows ultimately dominated the PC world." Update: 11/19 04:54 GMT by T : Apparently, Woz's words were taken slightly out of context.
Use what you want and leave the "I win"/"you win" dogma aside.
Gone!
Part of the reason Windows was successful was that it supported a lot of hardware, with only one API. Android needs to insure that it's not difficult to write a single application that will run on every decently modern ( 2 year old) android phone, or else it would give up what is probably its biggest advantage.
All that matters is that it's open to third party hardware and third party developers in general. The exact nature of that openness is irrelevant as far as the consumer is concerned. All that matters is that there is competition among hardware and software vendors to drive down the price of systems and increase compatibility, and people will buy it in ever-increasing numbers. This obviously will never happen with Apple's OS since there is no hardware compatibility or competition.
Everything we've always said here about avoiding monocultures and the need for competition remains true. The phone market is actually much bigger in volume than the PC market, so a number of cultures could flourish and still have good economies of scale. So long as standards are enforced on security and the actual radio and phone parts, it shouldn't matter.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I thought Woz and Jobs got along pretty well even now, but I can't imagine this sort of thing making their relationship any better.
And I hope Woz is wrong, and no company "wins" the phone OS wars, because if somebody wins, then eventually they'll become a monopoly and all the consumers will lose.
I am officially gone from
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that mandatory data plans function as a way for the carrier to make back the share of the phone they paid for.
Not saying it's right (personally, I agree with you), just saying it's the way it likely is.
Living With a Nerd
Woz is arguing that it's the featureset that will lead Android to victory. I don't agree. Features don't sell the phones. So long as it covers all the most common bases the extra stuff is just nice to have, it's not a key decision point. Any smartphone could become dominant at the moment so long as it has a good interface, looks ok, gives the user access to the software they want and, crucially, is marketed well enough. Even if iOS lags behind on features Apple won't be lagging behind on marketing. It's what they're good at, and ultimately it's what will keep them on top.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Windows didn't dominate because of random events. It piggy-backed on the popularity of the hardware, specifically the IBM PC. When the PC won, so too did MS-DOS and its overlay called windows. If the PC had died, so too would have DOS and windows.
Android doesn't have the advantage of sitting on the #1 piece of hardware like windows had.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
While I kind of agree with you, your example is preposterous. Try upgrading a computer of the PSX era (Say, Pentium II at 400MHz with a Voodoo 2 card) to run a game of the PS3 era (say, Half-Life 2) and you'll find it a frustrating experience. Or you'll basically be replacing everything in the case, and you'll have an ugly computer by modern standards. Which is OK, but you probably won't save any money as compared to buying a complete refurb if you're not looking to build the ultimate computer.
But you can upgrade your computer to run newer games, or if you aren't too into games, you can keep your old PC running for years to just do regular tasks.
You can keep the PSX running for years to play PSX games, too, if you're willing to replace the laser assembly periodically; and there's a continuing supply of replacement parts being made to fill the substantial demand.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As long as both platforms keep making their customers happy I don't see why they won't both continue to do well. If neither knocks the other to irrelevance it's not "dominant".
Apple does great holding the line on the "premium" phone, making lots of money for their shareholders. Android does great at providing a vast array of choices at varying levels of cost.
The concern with domination is that a dominant player will crush all opposition and bring progress to a halt to protect its monopoly. I don't see that happening with either of these players. The player in the field that plays that way is having a hard time getting his game on.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's hard for me to look at Apple as a loser in this battle. They may not win the marketshare battle, but they are very profitable and influential. People generally love their products.
Not bad for coming in second place.
BS. Hardware manufacturers in the cell phone market do NOT compete on price. All the smart phones are priced the same INCLUDING the iPhone. Android may outsell iOS in the future mostly due to user preference. Not of the OS, but of the hardware. There will never be a iOS device with a physical keyboard. The iPhone will continue to be the most popular individual handset. Android will also find a home on quasi smart phones that lack the all the features.
iOS is JUST as open to third party development as Android. iPhone hardware is just as open to hacking as any Android phone bought in the US. The average American is never going to order the unlocked version from overseas. The only thing closed on iOS is App distribution. And, if you really care about that, get a developer licenses and load your own apps manually. Sad fact is, the average user shouldn't have the ability to install anything. Windows and the Internet taught us this.
Marketing is a big deal. Microsoft and Apple constantly market things. They're always in your face. The general public knows they exist, and they also know how to use them without too much fuss. Compare this to Linux, which I have never seen a mainstream advertisement for and which can be daunting to a new user.
The situation between Google and Apple here isn't the same as between PC/Mac and Linux. Google markets their Android. I see commercials and advertisements for it everywhere. Yes, it's open technology, but it's open technology people know about. It is also similar to Apple's iPhone, which means people know how to use it. It makes a huge difference in adoption rates.
So I suppose in closing, Google's open technology could indeed win the day, and if you want Linux to take off, you best be getting commercials for it in primetime as well.
I think hardware architecture has a lot to do with this, too. Any good embedded engineering focus company can design their hardware and work with it with Android. Why? Because everyone knows the OS capabilities of the Linux kernel and how portable it is, that makes it easy. Woz has a point, but just a small one, Windows was dominant because it worked across the multitude of PC platforms and wasn't tied to specific hardware (al la RISC and Apple) Although Apple did have it's selling points, anything that's more encompassing that doesn't lock a consumer down is going to get tried and, more times than none, chosen over the competitor that doesn't.
Today, however, Apple makes some pretty bad-ass and inferior products that 'wow' you on functionality and usability from a UI perspective. I myself own a few device with iOS on them and their UI experience alone is worth the product. Android OS is just too portable not to use and it's using the Linux kernel; that alone gets you over the barrier and into competition because anyone can slap it on whatever hardware they want with for less reason and stand up a working product.
Cheap shit sells better. Why is this a surprise?
because there's no finish line. One can only hope to dominate for as long as possible. I agree that Android will probably become the most dominant mobile OS in the next few years, but that hardly means iOS is going to become insignificant. Windows dominates still, but as everyone can see Apple's hardly hurting financially with OS X. There's plenty of room in the market for two mobile OS's.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
He is a techie. Jobs is the business genius. Apple does not need to dominate to make a tidy profit. It's like that saying, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Microsoft does all of the people some of the time. Apple does some of the people all of the time.
Microsoft dominates the desktop. Does Apple care? Not as long as some folks are still willing to pay a premium for their desktop products. Nokia dominates cell phones. Apple says, "So, what?", as long as some folks make them a profit. If Android dominates smart phones, Apple will not care for the same reason. Why do some folks pay exorbitant prices for a Harley Davidson when compared to a rice burner?
And no, I'm not an Apple FanBoy, but I live with an Apple FanGrrrl. I only bought her an iPhone when I could get it re-imported, unlocked. And the UK uses some crazy-ass plugs on their electrical devices.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Linux has already won over proprietary unix, anyone remember SCO unixware or BSDi?
All the other proprietary unixes are relegated to niches on their own hardware (AIX, HPUX) or dead (Tru64, Ultrix, DG/UX, IRIX)
Windows has inertia and lock-in behind it, but windows has already proven that open technology will win out over proprietary - software was always considered a very cheap component of an expensive hardware purchase so windows came along for the ride in the drive towards the open x86 compatible...
Proprietary hardware has also been driven into small expensive niches despite being massively superior to the open x86 hardware of its day..
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Android will win by marketshare, which is percentage of phones running the OS. Of course, Apple doesn't feel threatened - and it makes sense when you think about it. Apple has 2 models of iPhones out there now - iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS. Android devices - well, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, HTC, they seem to easily have a dozen different models each. Plus all the other no-name brands out there releasing Android phones without Google (or pirating it). So you probably have over 50+ models of Android phones out there, compared to 2 from Apple. Of course Android phones will outsell the iPHone.
Now, should Apple worry? Probably not, because they're raking in the money. Profit wise, Apple commands a huge chunk (nearly half) of total mobile phone industry profits (including dumbphones), while RIM, Nokia, Samsung and LG dominate the remaining chunk. By handsets sold, Nokia, RIM, Samsung and LG dominate the charts, while Apple just has a tiny sliver. It doesn't matter that Apple is in #3 or #4 (after Symbian, RIM and Android) - as long as they're raking in the cash.
And I'm talking phones only - ignoring Android running tablets and multimedia players, and iPod Touches and iPads. The numbers that way are too vague.
Also, carriers LOVE Android. Face it - Sprint loves putting its NASCAR apps preloaded, Verizon loves its V-cast stuff, etc - all the "value-added" software to make carriers more money. Carriers hate the iPhone - what sane control-hungry corporation wants to give up complete control of the handset (hardware AND software) to Apple, and not only that, pay Apple for the priviledge of carrying the iPhone? When instead they can carry Android phones, and tell HTC, Samsung, and Motorola to shove it until they cripple certain features, preload crapware, and all the other stuff?
P.S. - I use an iPhone because it's free of carrier control. I want an Android phone, but giving up 3G isn't an option, and I want straight-from-Google updates. Hoping the Nexus Two will satisfy.
Linux has pretty much won over closed source. Appliances run Linux, supercomputers run Linux, servers run Linux. About the only place Linux as an OS doesn't dominate is on the desktop.
Now, with Android, Linux is dominating in phones.
Free Martian Whores!
Sega tried that with the Mega-CD and 32X...
But the whole idea of a console is that it stays the same so you are guaranteed the games will run and not require any additional hardware you might not have, or won't run in a low detail mode or very slowly.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
iOS is open provided:
1: You develop on Macs only. Hackintoshes do not count because the BSA comes down hard on people using pirated operating systems for commercial gain. Android code is happily written on Windows, OS X, Linux or BSD.
2: You have your ducks in a row 100% before submitting the app for approval. If something causes it to be rejected, your app won't be in the new apps list and will have no visibility in Apple's App Store. There is also a delay when getting critical updates out. Your app has a show stopping bug that is causing customers to demand refunds from Apple? Expect to wait 1-2 weeks if not more time before your update gets on the store to fix things. Android, initial app submittal and updates are immediate. In fact, one of the cool things about Android's store is how often and fast devs update their apps. Some devs are *extremely* responsive, and I've seen apps take a suggestion one day, and have it in the app the next.
3: I do not need to jailbreak for basic functionality. Say an app crashes and I need the files it is storing. On Android, I can just fire up adb, tar off the files. On iOS, unless I jailbreak and ssh in, all my work would be lost.
4: I have to JB iOS devices in order to get widget functionality. To some, it is ugly, but to others, being able to see weather, a snippet of E-mail, tasks, and maybe the latest FB gossip is a good thing.
5: Android devices don't need to be tied to one single PC. All they really need from a PC is perhaps to have the memory card backed up once in a while, or music copied to the device. iOS devices will not work unless they have a "home" machine that activates them and copies music. Of course, there are third party utilities to help with this... for now. Apple can easily change the connection spec between iTunes and the iPhone to render those products irrelevant in a heartbeat.
Of course, jailbreaking is what a lot of people do and as of now is a solution... but there may come a time where the iPhone is so difficult to jailbreak that it does not get Cydia on it until the next model is out.
As an aside, I still use my old XBOX for XBMC (even though the site no longer supports it in updates the version I have is largely fine apart from the odd codec issue with newer rips). Just because nobody's making the games, doesn't mean they're "unusable".
I also feel the lack buttons is holding the iphone back, despite what 'focus groups' claim about the buttons, you simply end up wasting screen real estate with onscreen buttons.
What would those extra buttons do? I don't think the use of the extra buttons on Android and WP7 are that much of an advantage.
- it's all there and in 4.3" on this model, not 3.5" - honestly at 32, with my eyes - that's a bloody godsend.
A bigger screen, in itself, is always good. But the thing I like about the size of the iPhone is that I can easily use it with one hand. If something is a bit too small, I just hold it closer.
I think you'll find that Linux is a long way from winning over OS X. (Speaking as someone who uses both every day.)
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Or you can keep your old computer running and play PSX games for years... and every other console that's more than a few years old.
All that matters is that there is competition among hardware and software vendors to drive down the price of systems
Competition drives down price only to the extent that you can sell something at the same price or slightly better than another competitor.
But Android is not its own market; it includes Apple too because you have to say that all phones are competing against each other - and here's where having a number of different hardware makers works against the lowest possible price floor. Because a company that sells quite a few devices alone can get better pricing on components than several other hardware makers that split the remainder of the market. It's why Apple has been able to price things like the iPad cheaper than anyone else can make them.
to drive down the price of systems and increase compatibility....This obviously will never happen with Apple's OS since there is no hardware compatibility or competition.
Which totally ignores the Apple devices are sold in a larger market, as I said. It's quite obvious it HAS happened already with Apple pricing all the device lineup pretty aggressively AND maintaing above average margins. And as for the compatibility angle, iOS apps are more compatible amongst the many iOS devices sold than Android apps are with all the Android systems around.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
exactly and by it being open at the base OS level it means that what Microsoft did to keep Windows dominant can not happen on Android. Microsoft keep changing the API's so that their software applications always supported the updated OS first and they used private/hidden API's to give their software advantages over the competition. And it also helps that right now, Google makes their money from everyone putting ads on their free apps and from mobile search use while Microsoft made money on the OS and their apps. Woz has it wrong if he things Microsoft got where it is by being on open hardware because they did so much to limit what the competition could do once IBM gave them the dominant market position. IMO.
I would not write off Microsoft's Windows Phone OS yet. They have billions they can, will, and are spending on marketing and that will likely include special deals like 'ship ours and not theirs and we'll make you this deal' type of arrangements.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus