Woz Misquoted About Android Dominating iOS

bonch writes "Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's quote that Android would dominate over iOS was widely covered by the tech press, but after seeking clarification, Engadget reports that Wozniak was misquoted by Dutch paper De Telegraaf. 'Almost every app that I have is better on the iPhone,' says Woz, claiming that he would never say that Android was better than iOS. 'I'm not trying to put Android down, but I'm not suggesting it's better than iOS by any stretch of the imagination. But it can get greater marketshare and still be crappy.' Woz has an Engadget account and has posted further comments to the linked article."

Comments

News at 11

[unity100]

Steve Wozniak may or may not have been saying Android or any other os would or would not dominate IOS or other OSES in any potential platform that has been and will be invented in future. This may, or may not be a news broadcast.

Re:News at 11

[symbolset]

As long as we're talking about Mobile... did Windows Phone 7 kill Dell's mobile division?

Re:News at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

The title of the linked article is "Dell Mobile Is Gone, a Victim of Incompetence".

So, no, it didn't. It was killed by incompetence. As per the article. That you fucking linked to.

Re:News at 11

[h4rr4r]

Clearly the problem is they pay people who fail to perform 8 million dollars. I would be willing to fail at that job for 3 million dollars.

Re:News at 11

[sjames]

Heck, for two million, I'll even fail to show up for work! Top that!

Re:News at 11

[Penguinshit]

For 500k I won't even get out of bed!

Re:News at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, MS is pretty incompetent. So i wouldn't rule them out entirely.

Re:News at 11

[darthdavid]

For 250k I'll drink all night and be waking up, still slightly drunk, as the company is shutting it's doors for the evening.

Re:News at 11

[Shadow of Eternity]

For 150K less than him I'll shit on your doorstep. For only 100K less than him I'll shit on someone else's.

Re:News at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

For 300k, I will create more work than I have been given to complete. F it, i'll do it for 100k since the federal reserve pays me 83k to work for an operations team that is f-ing retarded. 2 full timers that just talk a lot and dont do work, 1 contractor that just talks a lot, and 1 contractor that looks like a female Chris Bosh and doesn't know jack and is dumb as rocks.

I guess that was off topic. Good night.

Re:News at 11

[symbolset]

Y'all are bargaining in the wrong direction. For only 16 million a year I'd take the Microsoft CEO gig and I can guarantee a 20% stock price bump my first 90 days or it's free. That's an extra $44B in market cap in three months. Shucks, I wouldn't even have to show up to deliver that. I could deliver that in a drunken stupor on the set of Girls Gone Wild just because my name is not Steve. I could have a lot of fun screwing around while doing that. It's a hell of a deal at twice the price.

Oh I'd want the usual platinum parachute and stock options too - just because working for the Beast of Redmond is so unsavory and there isn't enough money to make me do it for more than a year. I'm sure I could convince them to get rid of me in 12 months or so.

Re:News at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the Telegraaf newspaper. Although it may come across as a "quality" paper compared to most tabloids worldwide, it is the paper equivalent of Fox TV in the Netherlands. Bigoted, racist, always ready for a little setup to do some bashing. It was the only paper that was allowed to appear during the nazi-occupied years in WWII.
Does shit like this: publishes non-factual, fingerpointing article about left-wing journalists,falsely accusing them of terrorism. Journalists then get arrested, detained for weeks and their careers destroyed, based on "information in the media". Author of said article turns out to be a former cop and still is a Dutch secret service employee.
And this kind of stuff over and over again.
Just to inform you on the accuracy and dependability of the paper the article was in.

Re:News at 11

[sp4ni3l]

A common synonym for the telegraaf is the tele"vaag" here in the lowlands, "vaag" translates from lowlandisch to english as vague. Not a newspaper I would recommend to quote from!

Re:News at 11

[imakemusic]

When can you start?

Re:News at 11

[Barryke]

Agree. The Telegraaf is a glossy magazine / tabloid in newspaper format. From my experience, they hire bigot story writers instead of journalists.

Re:News at 11

[unity100]

Does shit like this: publishes non-factual, fingerpointing article about left-wing journalists,falsely accusing them of terrorism. Journalists then get arrested, detained for weeks and their careers destroyed, based on "information in the media". Author of said article turns out to be a former cop and still is a Dutch secret service employee.

in this time and age ?

Re:News at 11

[marcello_dl]

> Y'all are bargaining in the wrong direction. For only 16 million a year I'd take the Microsoft CEO gig and I can guarantee a 20% stock price bump my first 90 days or it's free.

Good offer. But first we should check whether a +20% would occur the very first day if the current Microsoft CEO were suddenly replaced by a lolcat.

Re:News at 11

[elrous0]

In unrelated news, Steve Jobs said he spoke with old friend Steve Wozniak for the first time in years on Wednesday night. Jobs called the discussion "friendly," saying that he just wanted to check in with his old friend and "Have a nice little chat."

Re:News at 11

[Gilmoure]

As a bonus, would you be able to buy Wizards of the Coast and screw with them?

Re:News at 11

[symbolset]

Yeah, sure. Making them implement the rules for their games, in Java, seems torment enough for their sins.

Re:News at 11

[symbolset]

I wasn't promising to outperform a lolcat. Lolcats might sometimes be percieved as funny. I've never been mistaken for a lolcat, and I'm not often mistaken for funny. This is serious business.

Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[Anonymous Coward]

This is proven daily by Microsoft.

In fact, I suspect that could be applied to an incredible number of consumer products and politicians.

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[zonker]

Indeed. BTW, this Slashdot story misquotes Woz too. He did say that Android would likely dominate. What he was misquoted about was the quality of Android vs. iOS. He said he prefers iOS apps over Android apps but he thinks Android as an OS will likely dominate over time.

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[Low Ranked Craig]

Starbucks, GM, AT&T + Verizon, etc, etc. Majority share != quality products.

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[Anonymous Coward]

we may have to subpoena de Telegraaf to find out what he actually said.

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[ppanon]

I believe that these days Toyota is the number 1 car manufacturer in the world. Of course, even if their brake problems have been overblown in some cases by people looking for an excuse for their bad driving skills, their recent quality record is not exactly spotless.

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. BTW, this Slashdot story misquotes Woz too. He did say that Android would likely dominate. What he was misquoted about was the quality of Android vs. iOS. He said he prefers iOS apps over Android apps but he thinks Android as an OS will likely dominate over time.

You're sugar coating it. He said
"Android phones have more features,"
and
"Almost every app I have is better on the iPhone."
and he expects Android
"to be a lot like Windows... I'm not trying to put Android down, but I'm not suggesting it's better than iOS by any stretch of the imagination. But it can get greater marketshare and still be crappy."

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[Chrisq]

I believe that these days Toyota is the number 1 car manufacturer in the world. Of course, even if their brake problems have been overblown in some cases by people looking for an excuse for their bad driving skills, their recent quality record is not exactly spotless.

You might say they are a runaway success.

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not putting it down, just saying it's crappy. Wow, I really wouldn't want Woz to put me down if that's his idea of not putting something down.

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[Anonymous Coward]

> Indeed. BTW, this Slashdot story misquotes Woz too.

Along with TFA, it's time to skip reading the summary. And beware of +5 comments too.

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[Gilmoure]

At least he didn't offer to dance with you.

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[johnlcallaway]

What soooo many people get caught up in is the 'my app is better than your app' syndrome.

Who cares if another app that does the same thing as this app is better?? As long as my app or phone does what I want it to do, it's good enough.

For instance, I don't need the 'best' computer at home. For one, I would never use all of it's functions, so it's a waste of money. Secondly, 'best' is only able to be determined if there is a set of measurable criteria, and the criteria for 'best' is different for every person, other than simple things like 'can I make a phone call'.

So, what Wozniak is really saying is that his iPhone is the best FOR HIM!!!!

I have an HTC Android phone, which I got after playing with my daughter's iPhone and seeing how Apple treated it's customer base. I felt it was the 'best' for me.

And after looking at my phone and my daughter's iPhone, my wife decided the best for for her was the HTC also. As have the majority of people in our office of young, bright, financial analysts ... except for one lone iPhone user.

Unless Wozniak is willing to publish his criteria for 'best', his opinion is no better than anyone else.

Re:Greater marketshare and still be Crappy

[4phun]

I'm not putting it down, just saying it's crappy. Wow, I really wouldn't want Woz to put me down if that's his idea of not putting something down.

There is another story of a major Android developer today complaining Android is now a major piece of fragmented donkey dung compared to the ease of knocking out a best seller in the Apple app store. That is an incredible put down of the free stuff Google is shoveling out the door. Between Woz and this guy Android had a bad day!

   

Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[h4rr4r]

The Woz has realized what he said might reduce the price of his apple stock, he is now retracting that statement.

Too bad since I don't have a Mac nor want to pay $99 just to play "Does Mr Jobs Like your App?" I cannot even try to develop for iOS.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[mikestew]

AAPL was up about $8 this morning before Engadget posted the correction. Dutch commenters on Engadget have equated the Dutch paper doing the quoting with the UK's The Sun or The National Enquirer in the US.

Me, I just remember the numerous times I've been interviewed or quoted by publications, or read a report about something that I witnessed. Almost without fail I'll be misquoted at some point (usually not horribly, but it's certainly not exactly what I said), and the report of what I witnessed gets something wrong. So I'm more willing to believe that a paper with a less-than-stellar reputation got it wrong rather than spin off into some conspiracy theory.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[h4rr4r]

That was supposed to be a joke, I highly doubt anyone who trades stocks even notices what The Woz says.

AAPL's current price is yet another sign the stock market makes no damn sense.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[RocketRabbit]

You know a lot of people have turned the price of a Mac and their $99 Developer Program expenses into a shit ton of cash.

Sure, you could try the same trick on Android, but even though there are more Android phones sold now, Apple's App Store accounts for 92% of the cell phone application store bucks spent. App Store coders like me certainly won't miss the competition, anyway, so yeah, stick to your plan of not developing for the iOS. That's the best advice I can give you.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[mikestew]

Sorry, I spent far too many minutes than were healthy skimming through the Engadget comments shortly before heading over to /.. Some of those folks weren't kidding when saying similar things. But, yes, it is Engadget after all.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[h4rr4r]

Who said I was doing any of this for the love of money? I do have a day job.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[king neckbeard]

And a lot of people have turned $1 into millions of dollars with a lottery ticket, but that doesn't mean people who buy lottery tickets aren't morons.. While there are success stories, the economics for the average developer may not be quite so bright, as this article suggests. It may not be dead on and things have probably changed somewhat with iAds, but it probably isn't a good choice by itself.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Tharsman]

You know a lot of people have turned the price of a Mac and their $99 Developer Program expenses into a shit ton of cash.

Sure, you could try the same trick on Android, but even though there are more Android phones sold now, Apple's App Store accounts for 92% of the cell phone application store bucks spent. App Store coders like me certainly won't miss the competition, anyway, so yeah, stick to your plan of not developing for the iOS. That's the best advice I can give you.

Don't forget about the headaches that come with programming for the platform. Angry Birds developers also have come out to say, in many words and with a lot of cact, what a headache it is to develop for the fragmented hardware platform.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Tharsman]

Who said I was doing any of this for the love of money? I do have a day job.

You would not need that job if you were making money playing your cards right, while enjoying dong what you do. Not sure if you actually have checked or just are basing yourself off all the /. noise, but Apple rarely rejects apps. The few that get rejected love to make a lot of noise.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[hkz]

I'm Dutch and I concur. Comparing De Telegraaf to The Sun feels about right. I won't comment about this incident, but De Telegraaf is not known for being nonpartisan and rigorous, to put it nicely.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[getNewNickName]

Apple trades at around 20 times its earnings, similar to Google and Oracle which are both market leaders as well. Nothing out of the ordinary here. What doesn't seem to make sense is why a company like Amazon trades at 60 times its earnings. Is its growth potential 3 times greater than Apple?

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[codepunk]

Got that right I am perfectly happy to code for iOS and sell on the app store.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Anonymous Coward]

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
i understand your blind rage towards apple but you are wrong. developing for ios is free. $99 is to get your app listed in the app store or to load the app on to a real device. please continue to complain though instead of learning the facts.

I also love that slashdot mods the parent as "informative" despite being completely wrong...

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[tepples]

Apple's App Store accounts for 92% of the cell phone application store bucks spent.

Moreover, Apple's App Store accounts for 100% of the portable media player application store bucks spent. Google has been slow to open Android Market to devices that aren't telephones, such as Android-based media players, leaving iPod touch as the only portable media player with a well-known application store.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Draek]

You know a lot of people have turned the price of a Mac and their $99 Developer Program expenses into a shit ton of cash.

Far less than the number of people who have turned the price of a Windows license and a MSDN subscription into a shit ton of cash, I assure you. After all, corporations pay a lot better than hipsters.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[foniksonik]

Amazon is still recouping it's costs. It's not as profitable as it can be. That said 60 times is still fairly speculative.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Anonymous Coward]

Making money while enjoying dong is illegal in most states.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be such an ass. You've *NEVER* been interviewed because you are nobody. What you need to do is get out of your basement.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[rve]

Dutch commenters on Engadget have equated the Dutch paper doing the quoting with the UK's The Sun or The National Enquirer in the US.

Then where are the titties???

It would be more accurate to compare the telegraaf to Fox News: one ultra conservative 800 lb gorilla in a jungle of moderate or liberal silk monkeys.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Anonymous Coward]

That article makes some good points (e.g., focus on the easy money first), but it's also pretty obviously twisting numbers to fit a pre-conceived notion. For instance, the author has no problem simply picking out numbers to claim that development costs for an iPhone app is over 11 times as expensive as an equivalent WAP or mobile web site. At very least, I'd want to ask a couple of people who'd done similar work because that's a pretty huge disparity.

I've yet to see anything even resembling a good analysis of app risk/reward. After not having good detailed numbers on the iPhone app market, another huge problem is that despite all the complaints, Apple lets in way too many worthless apps -- "me too" apps, especially, as well as apps that just don't do anything particularly useful. (I still see ads for jobs like "help us develop a crappy medical equipment ad as an iPhone app.") I don't care that some amateur developer spent too long figuring out how to make the fiftieth fart app and didn't make money off of it, and so far every story I've read about people not making much money has been along those lines. I am very curious about developers who make solid apps that have some sort of noticeable, worthwhile and unique quality to them, and how they end up doing.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[ppanon]

Apple's App Store accounts for 92% of the cell phone application store bucks spent.

Of course, since the iPod/iPhone/iPad won't run any app that hasn't been signed by Apple or using a corporate development SDK, The Apple App Store has a captive market. Android developers on the other hand have many more options in terms of how they can deliver apps to customers and charge for them, including direct sale. If you were a developer who already has a credit card payment infrastructure where your costs were on the order of 3%, would you choose to use that or pay 30% to the Android Market (or 20% to Amazon)? This especially important given the limited geographical area supported for payments by the Android Market until recently.

I doubt very much that the value of these direct sales are taken into account in these comparisons whereas what really matters from a developer's point of view is what their (sales revenue - costs) is for each market segment, not whether their sales are done through a centralized app distributor. I mean seriously, the people here are constantly whining about how the RIAA/MPAA are a cartel that overcharges for distribution of product due to their control of that channel, but they suddenly think it's amazing and wonderful and a selling point when Apple does it? Put down the Reality Distortion Field pipe.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[beelsebob]

What I don't understand is where this myth that there are more android phones sold even than iPhones came from, and certainly not than iOS devices in total.

Roughly in the last quarter:
Android phones: 10 million
iPhones: 14 million
iOS devices: 29 million

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Pieroxy]

In all fairness, I don't think anyone doubt that Android will outpace the iPhone. I mean, 5 major phone manufacturers all produces Android smartphones at a pace of 5/year each and with one thing in mind: bring the iPhone down. Of course, 50 handets to 1, they will collectively win.

That said, I don't foresee very clearly the time when the iPhone will be outsold by ONE handset.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Anonymous Coward]

You know a lot of people have turned the price of a Mac and their $99 Developer Program expenses into a shit ton of cash.

Sure, you could try the same trick on Android, but even though there are more Android phones sold now, Apple's App Store accounts for 92% of the cell phone application store bucks spent. App Store coders like me certainly won't miss the competition, anyway, so yeah, stick to your plan of not developing for the iOS. That's the best advice I can give you.

Don't forget about the headaches that come with programming for the platform. Angry Birds developers also have come out to say, in many words and with a lot of cact, what a headache it is to develop for the fragmented hardware platform.

What the fuck is a fragmented hardware platform?

Stop drinking the koolaid.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[delinear]

I guess it just goes to show that certain newspapers can get greater marketshare and still be crappy.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[delinear]

It's incredibly speculative, but I suppose Amazon do have good form - they've already survived one burst dot com bubble, so as far as "risky" ventures go, they're as close as you can get to a safe bet (even if they failed someone would buy them out just for the name). They also arguably have a lot more revenue channels they can explore, meaning it's easier for them to respond to their customers than Apple, who rely on a set of core (sorry, pun not intended) products today that themselves rely on holding people's interests tomorrow. To a certain degree the same goes for Google (they have diversity but their revenue is all ad-based so it's all based around getting more eyes on their customer's ads than anyone else).

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[KiloByte]

but that doesn't mean people who buy lottery tickets aren't morons

Actually, they are. Buying a lottery ticket with monetary gains in mind means you fail basic math.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet, that's a Rovio specific problem, because other games which are far more resource intensive are developed for Android just fine without facing such issues.

The problem is almost certainly that Rovio tried to pull of a lazy port, and rather than rewrite specifically for Android, likely pulled across a bunch of C code from the other platforms they initially wrote for and interfaced using the NDK. This means you need a higher spec on average than on the original platform to achieve the same performance results, and that if you haven't taken advantage of the available abstraction layers, then you're bound to face unpredictable results. This is how things like SCUMM were ported across- sure it was done quickly, but the end result isn't very good.

This is similar to the problems that even single hardware platform devices have faced with ports in the past such as the PS3- on release many PS3 games were poor ports of the XBox 360 version, and it wasn't because the PS3 couldn't cope, it was merely because they'd been ported over in the fastest, cheapest way possible, without care for the fact that'll make it a second rate product on that platform.

So effectively you're conflating the issue of Android development with the problems caused by a poor porting process by using Angry Birds as your example. These are two different issues, and in mixing them up as you have, you've made out the issue of fragmentation to be more of a problem than it really is. There's really no reason developing for Android has to be any more problematic than dealing with the fragmentation with Apple's platforms- screen resolution differences between the iPhone 4, iPad and other devices, OS differences between the iPhone, iPad, and iPhone 3G/3Gs/4, differences in processing power across devices, and differences in available hardware between devices.

If you think programming for Android and dealing with fragmentation causes headaches, you've clearly never developed for any platform over any period of time. Fragmentation exists on every platform designed to last more than a generation be it Android, Windows, iOS. Exceptions would be things like the PS3 or Wii or XBox 360 where they are only designed to last a generation but even here if you develop a game designed to be released on more than one of these systems you face the fragmentation problem.

Fragmentation is something for non-programmers, inexperienced programmers and trolls to whinge about. For skilled, professional developers, it's a fact of life you've long learnt to deal with because it's merely the price of progress, the only alternative is to simply use a platform that never progresses and rapidly becomes outdated, something which Apple, despite holding out on what quickly became an abysmally low screen resolution of the iPhone compared to the industry standard all the way up until the 3GS finally accepted is a bad idea unless you want to be seen to have a product that sucks.

It's a shame people like you who are clearly inexperienced at software development keep parroting this myth, because it sounds so dumb to those of us who do know the topic, and do know what we're on about. It's also why it's not scared people off Android and why Android is powering ahead in terms of developer numbers and handset sales, because people who do know what they're on about know that the fragmentation argument is little more than a troll made by people who simply don't know what they are talking about.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Anonymous Coward]

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/angry-birds/id343200656?mt=8

iPhone users also seem to be affected by the update.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[xaxa]

but that doesn't mean people who buy lottery tickets aren't morons

Actually, they are. Buying a lottery ticket with monetary gains in mind means you fail basic math.

A double negative: he's implying that people who do buy lottery tickets are morons.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[RocketRabbit]

Actually I would bet good money that most people who buy a MSDN license never renew it after their first year, and that most people coding for Windows never make a damn dime on their own time.

Sure they are getting paid "going rate" for a .NET coder, which these days is about $15 / hour, but there isn't even the slightest chance they will hit paydirt. Even if they have a great idea for a new program, and do all the work themselves, the guys on the corporate board will take home most of that cash.

So, in the final analysis, hipsters pay MUCH MUCH better than corporations, as long as you aren't mediocre.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[RocketRabbit]

Read your linked article again. It's ridiculous.

The development cost for most iPhone developers is $99. They aren't quitting their day jobs in order to slave over XCode all day - they are banging these apps out in their spare time.

As the AC said, the author of the linked article has an obvious agenda - to steer people away from iPhone app development, and then he proceeds to put together a bunch of tangled assertions which supposedly support his agenda.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Superken7]

So Angry Birds can't run on lower end phones, "a lightweight Angry Birds in the works". - news at 11.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[drinkypoo]

Don't forget about the headaches that come with programming for the platform. Angry Birds developers also have come out to say, in many words and with a lot of cact, what a headache it is to develop for the fragmented hardware platform.

There are not very many words there (not much of a reader, are you?) and they do not say anything about a headache. They do whine about their game not running on older, slower devices. Guess what? You have precisely the same problem on iOS devices, where your app will behave differently on iPhone, iPhone 3GS, older iPod touch, newer iPod touch, and iPad.

You are an Apple fanboy or shill. Go away.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[BasilBrush]

I saw Tomi Ahonen speak at a Nokia developer conference once. Around 2000 I guess. I think he was a Nokia VP at the time. If I remember correctly he was spinning a line, with figures and charts, to say that Nokia's growth (in units) was going to continue unabated past an ownership rate of 100%. Or some such nonsense. He doesn't work for Nokia anymore, and he's turned to writing books and doing speaking engagements. But he's still selling the Nokia line of thought. And outdated ideas about mobile technology. And I have no more faith in his use of figures than I did back then.

The article is way too long and uses way too many sources of figures to fact check. And to top it all he doesn't provide a single link to any source. But one very obvious thing is that whilst he differentiates between free and paid apps, he doesn't differentiate between:

1) Apps that a hobbyist has thrown together and then decided to see if he can make some money out of
2) Professional apps, which have been designed, where artists have been hired, which have professional websites, support and marketing to back them up.

He comes up with a $35,000 cost for development of an app, and applies it across the board. As if all those hobbyist apps cost that much to develop. As if averaging everything out gives any information about the profitability of real professional iPhone app development.

In my opinion there is no reason to trust his conclusions. And many reasons not to.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Karlt1]

And a lot of people have turned $1 into millions of dollars with a lottery ticket, but that doesn't mean people who buy lottery tickets aren't morons.. While there are success stories, the economics for the average developer may not be quite so bright, as this article suggests. It may not be dead on and things have probably changed somewhat with iAds, but it probably isn't a good choice by itself.

I read that blog all the time. But quoting him as evidence of anything is about as bad as quoting Enderle or Paul Thurott (windowsitpro.com). If you want strategy lessons, usualy the best thing to do is just the opposite of what they suggest.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[NickFortune]

You would not need that job if you were making money playing your cards right, while enjoying dong what you do.

On the other hand, it's the "making money" bit of that sentence that's problematical. I expect there are plenty of successful app developers who'll tell you they got that way by having fun and playing their cards right. The trouble is that the relationship rarely works in reverse. Having fun does not ensure success, any more than playing your cards right ensures winning the game.

I'm fairly confident that for every mobile app that makes a ton of money, there are a hundred that get maybe two or three sales. Not giving up the day job is a smart move.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Miamicanes]

> You know a lot of people have turned the price of a Mac and their $99 Developer Program expenses into a shit ton of cash.

I think it's more an act of pure revulsion that you're forced to join the Church of Steve by purchasing a fairly expensive computer you abhor as the condition of developing software for the iPhone, and THEN play "Mother, May I?" to get his proxied blessing (that has nothing to do with quality or content, and everything to do with it being "family-friendly", bland, and uncontroversial. Want to create an app that lets you go into the restroom, dust something a girl you just met at the bar touched for fingerprints, photograph them, instantly identify her from it, and read reviews posted by others about her performance in bed? I can guarantee there won't *ever* be a blessed iPhone app for it... but you'll probably find something comparable for Android by the middle of next summer. The world will never see "iSlut", but will almost certainly have "mySlut" before long, if only as a joke ;-)

The day iPhones officially allow users to freely download and install unblessed apps (with a cute extension that implies sin, like ".eve"), I'll begin to respect iOS.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[VortexCortex]

You know a lot of people have turned the price of a Mac and their $99 Developer Program expenses into a shit ton of cash.

I'm certain that many others have spent money developing applications for Apple's repository, only to be denied the ability to sell the application for undisclosed reasons.

At least when I develop programs for Android my development environment isn't limited to overpriced Apple products, and I'm certain that I will be able to distribute the application. With Android I know I have a chance to recoup my expenses; With Apple the chance is not guaranteed.

Re: the lottery example. Apple is worse than the lottery, they produce applications and therefore have a conflict of interest when it come to selling competing applications. At least in the lottery, if you pay $1, you are guaranteed a shot at winning, and the more money you spend the greater your chance of winning. In Apple's lottery, no amount of money spent can guarantee a shot at selling your product. IMO, that's more moronic than playing the lottery.

Keep doing business with Apple, just hope they aren't secretly building an app similar to yours, and hope that your app doesn't mysteriously rub Steve the wrong way.

[T]here are more Android phones sold now, Apple's App Store accounts for 92% of the cell phone application store bucks spent.

That 92% is right now. As you have said, in the very same sentence, "There are more Android phones sold now." More android phones are being developed right now, compared to just one Apple phone. Devices other than phones can use Android and run Android apps. That 92% figure is certain to drop as Android device sales climb (which even Woz thinks is most likely).

App Store coders like me certainly won't miss the competition, anyway, so yeah, stick to your plan of not developing for the iOS.

I hope your Apple loyalties don't keep you from developing apps for Android, even as the market grows. Having a second distribution channel to fall back on is a very smart idea...

I will miss your competition because I strive to break the platform boundaries with cross platform applications. The more multi-platform applications the less control the repositories have over the developers, the more choice consumers have, the less platform lock-in consumers face, the easier it becomes to develop cross platform applications, and the more potential money developers can make on their products.

That's the best advice I can give you.

If so, please stop giving advice. That's terrible advise.

If you don't currently own any Apple products, you can't develop applications for Apple products.

My advise is to use the hardware you have to develop for the more open Android marketplace. If you are profitable in doing so, then it would be wise to consider using some of your profits to purchase the Apple products required to develop apps for their repository too. Likewise, if you develop for Apple's repository consider developing for Android's as well.

If money is not your aim, then perhaps it is wise not to waste time developing for a platform your app may not be able to be distributed on.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[maxume]

Surely AppsLib has had at least $1 of revenue (so Apple only accounts for nearly 100% of pmp app revenue).

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[VortexCortex]

$99 is NOT to get your app listed; It's to distribute apps. You don't have to pay $99 every time you "get your app listed". Google's entry fee is cheaper, and if you don't want to pay you can still distribute you app, just not in Google's store. If you don't pay Apple, you can not distribute your iOS apps in their store or anywhere else. Note: (Jailbroken phones == Jailbroken iOS) != iOS to me.

Developing for iOS is not free. I have several computers at home. I can install Windows, or *nix on any of them, but I can not install OSX on any of them (or iOS either for that matter). Developing for Android does not require me to use Google hardware or a Google OS. Developing for Apple does, and Apple's hardware is much more expensive than the faster machines I have already built at home. I would have to pay money to purchase crappy Apple hardware to develop for iOS, whereas I do not have to purchase additional hardware to develop for Android.

When you compare downloading the Android SDK to purchasing Apple hardware then downloading the iOS SDK: iOS development is much more expensive.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are saying, based on fantasy pulled from your own ass, that you are right.

Can't argue with that.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[DragonWriter]

I doubt very much that the value of these direct sales are taken into account in these comparisons whereas what really matters from a developer's point of view is what their (sales revenue - costs) is for each market segment, not whether their sales are done through a centralized app distributor.

Actually, what really matters to a developer is what their total revenue stream is, not what their application sales revenue is, from whatever venue. Now, some developers revenue is just from selling the app itself, but lots of developers get revenue from other places -- e.g., advertisements, online services for which the app provides a convenient mobile UI, etc.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[e4g4]

Fragmentation is something that can be handled with proper spec'ing and testing, but equating the fragmentation between exactly 9 different iOS devices (well, 11, if you split the 3G/no 3G ipad, and count the Apple TV), and the veritable cornucopia of hardware that runs Android seems a bit cavalier. The strategies for managing those two markets (and the volumes of capital required for proper testing) are quite distinct, in my opinion.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[HermMunster]

I want to point out that Android has a big share of the market right now and it is growing ever faster. It is an incredible mobile OS.

The second thing I want to point out is that all mobile Apps are tiny in comparison to desktop applications. There's a rather significant difference between the two.

The third thing is that the resources on the mobile device dictate the sophistication of the mobile apps, meaning, that because the platform is limited so are the apps and thus so is the sophistication.

The fourth thing is that due to the size of the apps and the lack of sophistication in mobile apps the disparity in features and quality will disappear sooner than later. Feature parity will win. The same developers for the one mobile OS will be developing their programs for the others.

The Woz was misleading when he made his corrective statement. Maybe he's caught in the fanboism prevalent in Apple's arena. Maybe he just didn't think it through. There's really no foundation for him saying what he said primarily because he's not seen all Android apps and he's comparing today's apps on Apple's iPhone to apps that were started more than a year after (meaning more development time and more time to polish the Apple mobile OS apps.)

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Tharsman]

1) It works on first generation 412mhz iPhones.

2) Look at their site, the TMobile G2 (800mhz) running Android 2.2 is also in their problematic unsupported list.

Or perhaps the iOS is so amazing that it makes old hardware perform faster than new one?! That would make the iOS even better than Woz think it is!!! News at 11!!!!

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[InsaneProcessor]

Yes, but I actually use Google and Amazon. I will not be using i anything unless it becomes affordable and not network restricted (like iphone).

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Tharsman]

There are not very many words there (not much of a reader, are you?) and they do not say anything about a headache.

The article has 430 words, and it can be summarized in "we can't support all Android units.

Also, from the link:

With our latest update, we worked hard to bring Angry Birds to even more Android devices. Despite our efforts, we were unsuccessful in delivering optimal performance.

I don't know you, but with my basic knowledge of slang, I'd call a headache anything I worked hard to do and despite all my efforts I found myself unsuccessful at doing it.

They do whine about their game not running on older, slower devices. Guess what? You have precisely the same problem on iOS devices, where your app will behave differently on iPhone, iPhone 3GS, older iPod touch, newer iPod touch, and iPad.

You do realize that they list newer hardware in the article (like the TMobile G2) and that Angry Birds runs flawlessly smooth in first generation iPhones despite those units only having 412mhz chips? Same game. Slower hardware. Running smoother.

That is what comes with hardware fragmentation. Graphic chips, ram speed, all that changes on every unit, sometimes even units made by the same manufacturer. Chip changes specially are a huge deal, as not all handle OpenGl the same way, making it forceful to test your code on every single unit and somtimes optimize for each, regardless how new the hardware is. THAT is fragmentation, not in the OS but in the hardware.

Oh and yea, it happens in the PC world too. Big studios spend a lot of money in Q&A to test across many configurations and the most common variety off video cards. At the end of the day they tend to only support two of all the graphic chip brands out there, because it's just not viable to test for all. That seems to be the way of the Android, developers will have to test certain cellphones with certain chips and just tell their users they can only support those.

You are an Apple fanboy or shill. Go away.

You are an Android fanboy who cant read and accept the facts. I accept iPhones are closed and not everyone can develop completely freely for them, and the fact that they are locked up with the second worst carrier in the US. Why can't you accept Android's flaws too?

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[h4rr4r]

I do love my day job, why else would I do it?

I use a lot of FREE(libre) software both and home and at work I have no plans to write any software for a mobile platform that is not FREE.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[HermMunster]

Those are probably exaggerated numbers, as clearly 1/3 of iPhone/iPad users don't download content from Apple's store. And even then it would be difficult to say how many are repeat customer purely from your 92%. Clearly there is exaggeration here as it isn't possible to measure both markets simultaneously. Apple might release it's numbers, but certainly their agenda leads to carefully crafted accounting. And, Apple has been selling the iPhone for a longer period of time, so the number is misleading in that it doesn't account for the percentage sold on each platform cross referenced by the time period that the device has been available.

People that develop for one generally develop for others. And the cost of developing for the iPhone is much more than $99 as you need to also have a Mac computer to do so, as XCode only works on OS X.

I own an iPhone and have downloaded quite a few free apps and purchased quite a few as well. My app usage is far from central to the device. There are apps that I use regularly but those are things like Netflix (which is free) & XBMC remote. I can't even think of the names of the other apps as I don't use them frequently enough to remember their names.

Primarily I use the phone as a phone. Two of three sisters had an iPhone and one of my nieces has one. Since, I've bought a competitor's phone, and so has one of my sisters. None of my sisters nor my niece downloads apps for long term use.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Tharsman]

You would not need that job if you were making money playing your cards right, while enjoying dong what you do.

On the other hand, it's the "making money" bit of that sentence that's problematical. I expect there are plenty of successful app developers who'll tell you they got that way by having fun and playing their cards right. The trouble is that the relationship rarely works in reverse. Having fun does not ensure success, any more than playing your cards right ensures winning the game.

I'm fairly confident that for every mobile app that makes a ton of money, there are a hundred that get maybe two or three sales. Not giving up the day job is a smart move.

On the other hand, there is not worse looser than he who does not even bother to try.

Besides, no one suggest you quit your day job first. You would first develop and should you meet moderate success, then you can quit the dayjob. Also, an app does not have to make huge success to support you. A huge amount off developers make moderate success that is still better paying than a regular dayjob, although it is, in the end, a day job as you are forced to keep making new software to make sure those founds don't run out.

In the worst case scenario, if you play your cards right, the potentially minimal income you get developing software and selling it 99c a pop can be an additional supplement to your salary. Perhaps manage to pay the electricity bill one month.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Tharsman]

I do love my day job, why else would I do it?

People that love their "day job" usually call it a profession, not a "day job", but hey to each his own.

I have no plans to write any software for a mobile platform that is not FREE.

Your prerogative. Enjoy your profession.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[drinkypoo]

You do realize that they list newer hardware in the article (like the TMobile G2) and that Angry Birds runs flawlessly smooth in first generation iPhones despite those units only having 412mhz chips? Same game. Slower hardware. Running smoother.

I haven't done and [probably] won't do an analysis of why this would be and whether it must necessarily be so. Suffice to say that if their game were still more demanding then there would be a differing experience on different iWhatever devices/models.

You are an Android fanboy who cant read and accept the facts. I accept iPhones are closed and not everyone can develop completely freely for them, and the fact that they are locked up with the second worst carrier in the US. Why can't you accept Android's flaws too?

Android has plenty of flaws but this problem isn't unique to Android, as already stated software for iOS won't run the same on all devices, so objecting to this tendency in Android is ridiculous. What more is there to say about this particular aspect of the argument?

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[NickFortune]

On the other hand, there is not worse looser than he who does not even bother to try.

Of course there is. The guy who jumps off the top of the Empire State Building and flaps his arms real hard on the way down, for example. He can try as hard as likes, but he's still going to lose. Big time.

Of course, if he learns to fly before he hits the ground, then I'm going to look pretty stupid. But unless his name is Arthur Dent, I know which way I'm betting.

Besides, no one suggest you quit your day job first.

That wasn't the way it came across to me. "You would not need that job if you were making money playing your cards right, while enjoying dong what you do" Maybe there's an unintended ambiguity there.

You would first develop and should you meet moderate success, then you can quit the dayjob

Put like that, I don't have a problem.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Tharsman]

That wasn't the way it came across to me. "You would not need that job if you were making money playing your cards right, while enjoying dong what you do" Maybe there's an unintended ambiguity there.

Emphasis added. You would need to already be making money to not need a day job.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[h4rr4r]

I also call my significant other terms like "my old lady" and "the old ball and chain". These are just expressions.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[h4rr4r]

It is free?
I was not aware, please show me where I can get the dev kit for linux.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[mcrbids]

Apple trades at around 20 times its earnings, similar to Google and Oracle which are both market leaders as well.

Which also makes no sense, and violates the basic idea and utility of stocks!

I own part of a company. The reason that I own this is for the profits - I get a portion of the profits commensurate with my share of the ownership of the company. Originally, that was how stocks worked as well, and technically, that's how it still works. The point of owning stocks was originally about the dividends.

But now, people don't buy stocks based on their real expectations of dividends - they buy in expectation of stock price volatility! It's a giant gambling racket, where the actual economic return of the system (dividends) is dwarfed by the economic costs/losses of the overvalued stock. It's become a giant WTF, and something that's promoting unethical behavior on the part of the companies: The stock holders don't care about the operation and profitability of the company as much as they care about the stock price, so there's reduced incentive for the corporate officers to be ethical.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[RocketRabbit]

There are basically only three platforms: old iPhone / iPod Touch, retina iPhone / iPod Touch, iPad.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[swb]

Amazon is a great business. They do everything you can imagine with their retail infrastructure, including reselling access to about all of it to other people that want to use it (cloud infrastructure, distribution centers, payment processing, used merchandise).

I'm not sure I've had many bad experiences with Amazon products bought from amazon or anyone else (got a $1 bill inserted in a used CD when the owner realized he overcharged me by mistake!) up to and including buying huge products (Weber Summit grill, $100s off of retail).

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Anonymous Coward]

A fragmented platform is a long list of testing permutations to ensure that your application runs correctly no matter which phone the user has. When developing for iOS, you can limit yourself to testing using the 3G, 3GS, 4 and possibly iPod all with the latest version of the OS. That's a very reasonable list of permutations and Apple's developer tools do a good job of simulating each hardware configuration so that you don't need physical versions of each device.

With Android, the list of phones you have test is huge. And since upgrading the OS to the latest version is difficult if not impossible for many Android users, you have to test Froyo, Eclair and possibly even Donut.
And this doesn't even take into account that the various handset manufacturers have given customers customized versions of Android instead of the stock version from Google.

The link GP posted was from a developer who basically tried to release an Android app without testing all the permutations and got burned. They ended up having to list all the phones that were untested until they can deliver a lighter-weight version. That's precisely the problem with developing for a fragmented platform.

This problem is not impossible to solve, but it's something that Google needs to address. They need to work with carriers and handset manufacturers to find a way to allow users to easily upgrade their Android devices to the latest version like Apple does. And they need to make the developer tools capable of better simulating different hardware configurations so that developers don't need to purchase 30 different phones just to feel reasonably comfortable that their app will run well on any phone. People criticize Apple for charging $99 to distribute and app and requiring that you buy a Mac to develop it, but that investment is minuscule in comparison to the phone hardware necessary for adequate testing of Android apps.

There's no koolaid in play here...this is a problem that Google needs to solve.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Tharsman]

OK, just to put things in perspective, read this statement made by John Carmack on Rage for the iOS:

It is just so much more pleasant to develop for the iOS market than for the traditional feature phones," he told me. "Being able to work on a more constrained project now and then is rewarding in a lot of ways, and of the available small platforms, I think that the iOS platform is clearly the best. We're keeping our eyes on the Android market; we'll be freeing up our first application internally on that pretty soon, but there's a lot of things with how the distribution platform works and the diversity of the platforms that you have to target, where things are still much, much nicer on the iOS world."

Even Carmack is putting subtle emphasis on the fragmentation issues. I think the issue is most fandroids (and Google) is that they all take the attack to be at the OS. Although there IS an OS fragmentation, the real issue is with the hardware diversity. That's a double edge sword, in one hand it brings options, and options are good. In another, it makes game development harder.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[KiloByte]

Oif. My stupid native language has double negatives meaning the same as a single negative, it's my fault reading too carelessly made me misparse this in English. Sorry.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[jo_ham]

The complaints about the RIAA et al, are because the figures are reversed - for every dollar spent, the lion's share goes to them for "promotion, distribution, A&R and recouping investment" while a tiny slice goes to the artist. Apple's cut is the small share, and covers hosting, distribution and a small fee. Apple aren't making hay on the app store in software sales - the cost covers the expenditure, with a little left over. The RIAA, on the other hand, takes the bulk and says "be happy for it".

Apple's profit on software sales from the app store (and similarly, profit on music/movie sales) is clearly stated in their financial statements, and you cannot lie on those (well, you can, but they're not Enron or WorldCon), so we can be reasonably sure they're not lying when they say "the 30% cut covers running the store" - the profit margin is pretty low. The real reason they do it is to drive sales of iPods and iPhones - which makes up an *enormous* amount of their overall profit (dwarfing even sales of laptops and desktops). The pittance from the app store software sales themselves are just a drop in the bucket.

Could they offer hosting and distribution for free? Sure, and it wouldn't hurt them in the grand scheme of things all that much, but it's still not a negligible figure - the store consumes a huge amount of bandwidth, and it's certainly not free to keep all those servers running all the time. I imagine they have weighed the cost of charging a nominal amount for taking the hassle out of distributing a developer's app (no server hassle, no hosting bills, no need for billing, no need for any of that - you just get a check in the mail, minus 30%) with offering the same deal for free and decided that enough people will see the 30% as reasonable.

I know which I would prefer (hosting and distributing my app myself, and keeping whatever profit was left after expenses, versus having apple do it and lose 30% of the total to them, but not have any of the expense or hassle of doing it in house), but then, convenience is high on my list of desires.

The only missing part is the ability to choose to do it all in house if you want, but given that the cut is not *too* severe, and that if you were going to do it yourself you would still have to pay for hosting, bandwidth, staff, billing expenses, server costs etc, I'm not sure too many people worry about it. Apple has economies of scale on its side to keep those costs low by averaging them out. I guess if you were big enough and had enough apps you could get your costs under 30c per dollar of revenue for all those things, but for indie developers who really just want to focus on writing apps, having that headache taken away from them is more than worth it.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[jo_ham]

It came from linear extrapolation of a set of figures taken at a key time:

1) the iPhone 4 was launching in a few months, so sales of the 3G and 3GS slumped
2) Verizon was doing a 2 for 1 deal on android handsets during that same period, so every purchase was counting double
3) the Android numbers then went above the iPhone numbers in that quarter.
4) people drew a straight line graph upwards based on those figures
5) profit?

I am not trying to downplay the rise in Android handsets or Android as a whole - I think it is exactly what the smartphone market needs, but the oft-touted casual remark on slashdot "well, with Android now outselling iPhone..." as the opening to a post is really all based on those stats.

Soon I figure it really will - especially since the hardware selection is much wider for Android, but downplaying the size of the iOS market is just silly (I have seen people call it a niche, which just baffles me. Hate it all you want, but underestimate your "enemy" at your peril - there is no conceivable way the iOS market could be described that way right now, or for the forseeable future [minimum 2 years, given the length of most phone contracts, plus a bit].)

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless his point has been made. You have to design for this. And designing for it once is all that has to be done.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[cthulhu11]

Some time ago, back in the Usenet days, I read an account of an interview with a sysadmin. The reporter/journalist asked what sort of computers were on the admin's network, and he replied "Sun 3/60's". The story read that he had a network of IBM 360's.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[RocketRabbit]

"I hope your Apple loyalties don't keep you from developing apps for Android, even as the market grows."

Blah, blah.

Even though Android outsells the iPhone, 92 of 100 dollars spent on cell phone apps are spent on the Apple platform.

For me this is all that matters. Hell, why complain? While I am playing XPlane, you can enjoy TuxRacer!

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[RocketRabbit]

OK, good. I surely don't need even more competition on the iPhone store. You go on and keep your hairshirt and your dusty, ash covered face. I'll see you from the rear window of my Jaguar.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[RocketRabbit]

Anybody who has any sort of sense of value already bought a Mac. Shit, the laptop hardware is so much better that a lot of my poor half-retarded Windows friends, as well as my Freetard friends, already bough Macs just to run their second-rate OS's. They got a copy of OS X for free.

Why didn't you? You like you big clunky plastic cheap computer?

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Superken7]

Actually, the first generation iphones are much faster than most of those first-gen android phones (not just because of raw CPU where they are more or less equal)

But you are right about the G2, thats very strange.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[NickFortune]

You would need to already be making money to not need a day job.

So your point is that if the had already become a successful mobile app developer in his spare time, then he would be able to quit his day job?

That seems an odd thing to say. The logic is unassailable, certainly, but I can't imagine you were saying anything the poster hadn't figured out for himself.

Thanks for the clarification, in any case.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[badkarmadayaccount]

Is that language per chance Slavic?

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[Tharsman]

The poster in question said he didn't need to make money out of programming because he had a day job. That, at first hand, sounds like some one with great Football skills saying he plays for free in aficionado leagues and cares not about playing in the NFL because he has a dayjob at BK that pays the bills.

He later clarified that his "day job" as he called at first, is his career, which he loves (I never heard anyone call a career a "day job" (plainly "job" yea but not "day job") unless they are forced to use it to finance what they consider their true job, or because they are forced to maintain two and need to make the distinction, but to each his own.)

That aside, not many realize how much money they can make by writting software. I recently was reading an article (cant find it right now) about a company that made a program for the iPad that was at best just "moderately successful" and the team still made 100,000 in 4 months. That's 25k a month, not a millionaire success that would make the press, but more than doctors tend to make (albeit, in this case it was a team of unmentioned size so not sure how much money ended up on every developer's hands.)

I also seen quite a few blogs about developers that claim they make enough money to make a living out of it without becoming millionaires or even being able to pay off a mortgage.

The point is, "moderate success" is not as rare as people think it is in the Apple App Store. This is not as common thinking as you appear to guess. It seems people that have not tried or done research on it think it's either huge success or no money at all.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[NickFortune]

The poster in question said he didn't need to make money out of programming because he had a day job. That, at first hand, sounds like some one with great Football skills saying he plays for free in aficionado leagues and cares not about playing in the NFL because he has a dayjob at BK that pays the bills.

I rather read his point as "I don't want to develop on iOS, and since I'm not doing this for the money, pointing out how much money some people have made isn't particularly persuasive"

The point is, "moderate success" is not as rare as people think it is in the Apple App Store. This is not as common thinking as you appear to guess. It seems people that have not tried or done research on it think it's either huge success or no money at all.

Yeah, Considering we all run on analogue hardware, we have a dismaying tendency to think in binary terms sometimes :)

As for the App store, from the reading I've done, I got the impression that the curve tailed off quite sharply. A handful of people making good money, maybe five times that making enough to get by, and then a hell of a lot who never recoup the cost of the dev kit. That said, I can't remember where I read that, so take it with a pinch of salt. Still, it sounds about right to me.

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[gmhowell]

It came from linear extrapolation of a set of figures taken at a key time:

1) the iPhone 4 was launching in a few months, so sales of the 3G and 3GS slumped
2) Verizon was doing a 2 for 1 deal on android handsets during that same period, so every purchase was counting double
3) the Android numbers then went above the iPhone numbers in that quarter.
4) people drew a straight line graph upwards based on those figures
5) profit?

5) "Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continues... AAY!"

No reason that fandroids of iOS fanboys should look at the other as 'the enemy'. Plenty of room for both. They keep each other moving. *shrug*

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[gmhowell]

Having used a Mac on and off since 1987, I've used a fair number of apps. Not all of them. But plenty. I can say without a doubt, I wouldn't for an instant want to spend 99 cents on a desktop or phone application programmed by someone who thinks a Mac is "a fairly expensive computer you abhor". The apps are substandard in ways that matter to me. If that's the tax that keeps you out of that market, so be it.

BTW, why wouldn't I just sample said woman myself and make my own decision?

Re:Founder of Apple realizes what he said

[RocketRabbit]

Android has a multitude of platforms as well. If we count different screen sizes, OS revisions, hardware capability, the situation is much much worse than the iOS.

While they're fighting

[Anonymous Coward]

Symbian is sitting comfortably on his throne
 

Re:While they're fighting

[h4rr4r]

And losing marketshare everyday.

Re:While they're fighting

[DurendalMac]

I think you mean, "Symbian is sitting uncomfortably on his steadily-shrinking throne because he's been unable to really compete with everyone else".

Re:While they're fighting

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

and like most royalty, it's ugly, inbred, useless and long past it's time.

Re:While they're fighting

[Lunix Nutcase]

And yet has gone down from over 60% to barely over 40% in only around 2 years.

Re:While they're fighting

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that as "Sybian" sitting comfortably on his throne. Makes sense, except for the "comfortable" part.

Re:While they're fighting

[tepples]

Symbian is sitting comfortably on his throne

Symbian may be king in Europe but not so much in North America, which represents a market with far more people-per-language.

Re:While they're fighting

[Anonymous Coward]

On phones that they literally have to give away for free.

Up next

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Gates says Steam on Mac could take off, XBox 360 still pwns.

Throne?

[BearRanger]

Isn't that a synonym for crapper? Where Symbian's market share seems to be headed?

Quantity != Quality

[scdeimos]

This is one thing I can agree with Jobs on:

But it can get greater marketshare and still be crappy.

Thus, Windows.

Re:Quantity != Quality

[scdeimos]

Don't you hate it when you think W-O-Z and it comes out J-O-B-S?

Re:Quantity != Quality

[Microlith]

I don't know, I consider having the vendor insist on controlling what I do to be pretty crappy.

Re:Quantity != Quality

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like the biggest wireless carriers do with every phone even if it's Android?

Re:Quantity != Quality

[Microlith]

Oh even the handset vendors. Motorola sure likes to keep handsets locked down. And only the G1 and Nexus One allowed root access without finding local exploits.

Re:Quantity != Quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, wrong. To root the G1 you had to downgrade to an ancient firmware version, exploit the terminal to enable ADB/telnetd, remount /system writable, create the su binary (technically it already existed in memory because of the way Busybox works), elevate the shell, and finally rewrite the recovery partition with a non-update-signature-verifying recovery image. I guess the last step was optional if you only wanted a superuser apk on the stock firmware.

Re:Quantity != Quality

[Microlith]

Err, I'm referring to the ADK1 I guess, whatever version Google sold directly. I just dodged the whole mess and bought an N900.

Re:Quantity != Quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yeah, I almost forgot about that phone. I still remember it costing almost $500 after fees. What a difference 2 years makes... ha.

Re:Quantity != Quality

[delinear]

I'm with O2 (if you wanted an example of the "biggest", they're apparently the third largest network, by subscriber numbers, in the whole world) and there is practically zero "controlling what I do" with my Android phone. A splash screen, and the name "O2" at the top of the pull down notification menu seems to be the extent of their control. I've never run into an issue installing or accessing any of the features of my phone. On top of that, I could have bought the exact same contract through a third party handset provider (like these guys) and even the minimal branding wouldn't be on there.

Re:Quantity != Quality

[dimeglio]

aka Steve^2

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[gman003]

Who actually reads Slashdot for the articles?

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[h4rr4r]

I only look at the dirty pictures.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[Anonymous Coward]

I come here for the trolls.... I'm not joking.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[h4rr4r]

Fark or sites like it have far better trolls.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[RocketRabbit]

Not me any more!

I am no longer going to just blindly click on whatever Slashdot links to. If it sounds interesting I will google or wikipedia for it.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[iamhassi]

"instead of linking us to the information directly, we get a link to a poor writeup on a third-rate PR web site, possibly without an actual link to anything more relevant?"

So Engadget is the third-rate PR web site in this case? I hate to burst your bubble, but Engadget gets 4x the visitors that slashdot does, 2 million vs 500k, so really we're the third-rate website

Also slashdot stories are user submitted, so it only makes sense that their would be links to stories written by writers that (hopefully) do research.

Re:Sorry Woz

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy Droid X owner here, just wanted to add that crappiness is largely subjective and the different mobile OSes all have their strengths and weaknesses.

Common Hater mistake

[SuperKendall]

Apple Haters "re-crafting" information in order to try and shed negative light on Apple? You don't say!

Re:Common Hater mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

haha you certainly love the cock!

Re:Common Hater mistake

[Draek]

Just like Apple fanboys "re-crafting" information in order to try and make it as if Wozniak said Android was crap, you mean?

The zealots on both sides are pretty goddamned dishonest, as are zealots everywhere. Don't just put the blame only on one side, or you'll look like you belong to the opposite camp.

Re:Common Hater mistake

[Windwraith]

The opposite happens often as well, though. Hater's gonna hate, but fanboy is going to whiteknight over everything as well.
I personally have nothing against Apple, but I can't afford their products, and you can't go anywhere without hearing Apple this Apple that since the iphone came out. Sure it might be relevant tech news but it's getting monothematic.

Re:Sorry Woz

[icebraining]

He actually didn't.

If you re-read TFS, he just said that popularity doesn't imply quality, and he thinks the iPhone is better.

Re:Sorry Woz

[Anonymous Coward]

Android isn't crappy, just every realisation of it is.

Re:Sorry Woz

[MichaelSmith]

If you re-read TFS, he just said that popularity doesn't imply quality, and he thinks the iPhone is better.

Or TFA:

[android] can get greater marketshare and still be crappy

Listen I own android and openmoko phones. I am developing for both. A guy I works with develops for iOS and was impressed with the simplicity of the code written for android. Woz's implication about android is unfair. Its a shame because he otherwise has a reputation as a guy who will say it as it is.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[king neckbeard]

Being more popular than /. doesn't make engadget not a third-rate site.

Ha

[mr100percent]

"I'm not trying to put Android down, but... it can get greater marketshare and still be crappy."

Re:Ha

[bemymonkey]

Did he say anything else the first time he was quoted? It's true, he NEVER said that Android was or ever would be better, just that it would become dominant.

Windows is dominant in PC OS market share, but is it better than OS X? For me personally, yes (just like Android is much better than iOS for my taste), but it's definitely not a question that can be answered objectively.

Same thing here - Wozzy admits that openness and variety will always trump a closed off controlled system, but is still of the opinion that the closed, controlled system is better. How was it a misquote?

Re:Ha

[VortexCortex]

"I'm not trying to put Android down, but... it can get greater marketshare and still be crappy."

It can also get greater marketshare and be awesome too.

Unlike iOS, the Android platform itself is open to many different developers. It's yet to be seen whether Android will crush Apple's iOS or not.

I'm not trying to put Apple down, but... they can achieve success and still be a bunch of overbearing control freaks to me.

It's my opinion that Android is amazing, and Apple is crappy. It's Woz's opinion that Android could "still be crappy" in the future; However, note that he didn't say it actually was crappy. In fact Woz specifically says that his comments should not be considered a "put down" at all to Android, HA!

Re:Sorry Woz

[Anonymous Coward]

Nexus One is leaps and bounds ahead of the iPhone in my book. You gain features and battery life at the expense of shiny animations. Pity Google wasn't interested in selling models and just wanted to use it to stimulate non-shitty hardware running Android.

Re:Sorry Woz

[Anonymous Coward]

Your coworker is talking about the programming environment. Similarly, JRE and Microsoft Windows programmers think their environments are also awesome (in Windows' case, it actually is, kinda)... but the users of both think it's crap.

In my opinion, as someone who hasn't owned a single Apple device, but who has a Nexus One with stock firmware and a G1 with Cyanogen 6.0... the quality of the Android marketplace absolutely fucking sucks. Even the top 1% of apps are so simple that they can hardly be called applications. I don't know if iOS is any better... but I can't imagine it's actually worse.

translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Jobs called me and said if I want to keep my stock options I better change stories.

I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, he said iOS was better than Android right now, but that Android would win out.

Where did he say that Android was better now? He never did. This clarification story is clarifying that he didn't say Android today was better.

Obviously, the media was being a jackass again.

Re:I'm confused

[delinear]

This. I admit I didn't RTFA the first time around, but I never got the impression from the summary or the comments that he was saying anything about the quality of either OS. He was talking purely quantity, and it's fairly obvious that Android's main competition is not iOS (which is locked to a single device) but every other mobile OS that sells over a multitude of handsets. Given the showing from those other operating systems so far, I'd say it's actually pretty clear Android will end up as the dominant OS unless Google makes some serious missteps.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[drinkypoo]

If engadget is third-rate, then slashdot is fourth at best.

Re:Sorry Woz

[bonch]

It says right in the summary, in a direct quote from Woz, that he wasn't putting down Android. He simply said that something can have greater marketshare and still be crappy. Don't act like such a reactionary fanboy.

Re:Sorry Woz

[king neckbeard]

Part of the problem is that apps are often used as stand-ins for websites.

Re:Sorry Woz

[bonch]

Oh, for crying out loud. It can have greater marketshare and still be crappy. It was a point about quantity versus quality, and he said it with Windows in mind.

Do people really care?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't own a phone because someone else says so. I buy the phone that I like.

Re:Do people really care?

[Anonymous Coward]

An AC who says something smart. I think I'm in love.

Hmm... when two ACs copulate, is that when trolls are born?

Re:Do people really care?

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's the case, from where did the first ACs appear? Descendants of Iluvatar? Melkor maybe?

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[wintermute000]

from the comments, most engadget readers (and I'm one but I digress) are pro-sumers at best and often sound like high schoolers fighting over whose gadget is coolest. You don't seem to get any actual techs or engineers (at least those of us there are smart enough to keep our mouth shut since the SNR is so darned high) unlike here where you can (sometimes) get engaged in interesting discussions on the real technical specifics.

One way to clear this up

[meerling]

If the original reporter has the recording of the interview, he could prove his point. Or use it to make an apology for mistranscribing something.

Re:One way to clear this up

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, Woz was misquoted. Give it up, get a life, get out of your mom's basement.

Re:One way to clear this up

[Anonymous Coward]

If the original reporter has the recording of the interview, he could prove his point. Or use it to make an apology for mistranscribing something.

The reporter could do that. Suppose the quote was correct; in that case by releasing the audio clip the Woz is made out as making a giant ass of himself for a world-wide audience. Chances are that particular reporter won't be doing a lot of high-level interviews anymore in the future. For this same reason, not a lot of TV/radio reporters will keep going on about a subject the interviewee is very hard trying to avoid, max 2 follow-ups but then they switch to the next subject, answer or not. Some of that is time pressure as the effective way of avoiding to answer is just talk 2-3 minutes about something else. After follow-up #2 it's 6-9 minutes further into the interview so you force them to move on.

Re:One way to clear this up

[delinear]

I'm sure the reporter doesn't even care. He got his "OMG former Apple guy says Android will win" shock headline, he's already forgotten it and moved on to the next sensationalist story. This is only of interest to people who like to hear the facts, and those people doubtless don't buy that guy's newspaper. As for apologising, have you read a newspaper lately? Apologies come if they're forced by court action, and even then they'll be a two line retraction buried somewhere nobody will ever see. I always thought there should be a law that said if newspapers misquoted or outright lied, they should be forced to give the same prominence to the retraction as they did to the original story (i.e. if the original story was on the front-page and spread over three more pages inside, they should be made to lead with a front-page apology and three page retraction). That might get them to care more about the truth!

Re:Sorry Woz

[Xuranova]

Its a shame because he otherwise has a reputation as a guy who will say it as it is.

I see what you did there with 'otherwise'.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[shaitand]

This is so true. A comment here has no credibility in and of itself but there WILL be serious physicists posting on a physics story here. The same with any other scientific, technical, or engineering article.

There is plenty of hyperbole posted. When I read a hyperbole headline a glance at the comments will usually reveal how and why the article/summary isn't what it seemed within 5-10 lines.

What he really said was that the Iphone would

[Anonymous Coward]

become an Android, possibly the T-1000. But he's pretty sure that time travel thing won't happen.

Apple vs. Android.

[crhylove]

Is exactly the same battle as Apple vs. Microsoft a decade ago. And Apple will lose again for the same reasons: Inflated price, locked platform, and developer exclusion. Woz sees the obvious. Jobs apparently does not.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[tlhIngan]

Is exactly the same battle as Apple vs. Microsoft a decade ago. And Apple will lose again for the same reasons: Inflated price, locked platform, and developer exclusion. Woz sees the obvious. Jobs apparently does not.

Is Apple losing? Apple's in a really great spot - they're raking in cash. So is Microsoft, except that Apple is moving far less units than Dell, HP, Acer and other hardware manufacturers, so their actual costs per sale is lower and margins are higher.

They also only have 2 iPhone models out that's outselling individual Android phones out there. The only reason Android phones are "winning" is the sheer number of models of Android phones out there. They also rake in close to 50% of mobile industry profits, despite only having anywhere from 1-2% total mobile marketshare. All the other bigger companies (LG, Samsung, Nokia, RIM) are scrapping over the remaining half, despite accounting for over 90% of units shipped.

Yeah, Apple is losing. Apple's not participating in the race to the bottom, instead letting Dell, HP, Acer, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia compete against each other driving their margins and profits down.

Apple in 10 years? Well, I don't know. Just like I don't know where Microsoft willb e in 10 years. Or what Android will be in 10 years. Hell, in the past 10 years, we saw the rise and fall of PalmOS, and the rise and fall of Windows Mobile. Symbian's a bit longer lived. Android and iOS may not even exist in the next 5 years.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[Jartan]

Apple's mistake the first time around was sacrificing software sales to spur high margin hardware sales. That was a huge mistake because as Microsoft proved the real money was in the software. This time though the opponent is giving away their software for free and there's no way iOS can beat that for market share. Even if Apple did open iOS to other phones it wouldn't help. The whole locked platform/developer exclusion is just pure idiocy though. That part isn't making them any money at all.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[Anonymous Coward]

Emphasis mine:

This time though the opponent is giving away their software for free and there's no way iOS can beat that for market share. Even if Apple did open iOS to other phones it wouldn't help. The whole locked platform/developer exclusion is just pure idiocy though. That part isn't making them any money at all.

You're strong on opinion and weak on thinking, my friend. How much is Google making by giving their software for free? Did you know many Android phones don't even come with Google as a default search engine, let alone any other Google tie-ins?

The reason Android exists is simple: Google prefers a turbulent market they can control indirectly, rather than a market dominated by one single strong player that dictates the rules (Apple). Google doesn't profit anything from Android. Market share probably makes them feel all nice and fuzzy, though.

While Apple, their "idiocy" is making them billions of profit, which is growing rapidly with each quarter (they make twice the profit they made last year).

Maybe you should be forgiven as you've been brainwashed by reading too many poorly written tech articles, but it's simple:

1) Giving something for free is not a business model.
2) Having a big market share by giving something for free doesn't mean profit.

It's basic math.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's mistake the first time around was sacrificing software sales to spur high margin hardware sales. That was a huge mistake because as Microsoft proved the real money was in the software. This time though the opponent is giving away their software for free and there's no way iOS can beat that for market share. Even if Apple did open iOS to other phones it wouldn't help. The whole locked platform/developer exclusion is just pure idiocy though. That part isn't making them any money at all.

I had to laugh reading that. Do you know why?

Last quarter, Google posted profit of ~2.5 billion and Apple posted ~4.6 billion.

Less than half of Google's profit comes from mobile search ads (that's all the profit Android gives them).

About 2/3 of the profits of Apple are iDevices and related iDevices services, like AppStore.

By rough estimates, Apple makes 3 times the profit on iOS, that Google does on Android.

And you have the balls to call them idiots for not making as much money as Google does. It's funny.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[drinkypoo]

Is Apple losing? Apple's in a really great spot - they're raking in cash.

Yeah, they were in a great spot and raking in cash before, when they had 8% of the market. Then they went in the toilet. Now they have 11% or something? Who cares really, let's not argue. Let's move on:

Apple in 10 years? Well, I don't know. Just like I don't know where Microsoft willb e in 10 years. Or what Android will be in 10 years

If history repeats itself, and there is no reason to believe that it will not, then iOS will be an also-ran in ten years, and Android will be dominant. Any features in iOS lacking in Android can be added, but the biggest problems with the App Store etc are also its biggest benefits (e.g. walled garden model) and if you remove them then what you have is an Android competitor with no compelling advantages whatsoever and no ability to run Android apps.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is exactly the same battle as Apple vs. Microsoft a decade ago. And Apple will lose again for the same reasons: Inflated price, locked platform, and developer exclusion. Woz sees the obvious. Jobs apparently does not.

Phew, it's good that it's exactly the same battle, because if it was exactly the same battle as iPods versus other music players, the industry would be in trouble.

By the way, what do you base your liberal assumptions on? Oh, nothing...

Who do you think is making more money now. Google from Android or Apple from iOS. Do a little research, you may be surprised.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[Anonymous Coward]

That idiocy you talk about is the pure reason why I got my self an iPhone, former Nokia user.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[Karlt1]

If history repeats itself, and there is no reason to believe that it will not, then iOS will be an also-ran in ten years, and Android will be dominant. Any features in iOS lacking in Android can be added, but the biggest problems with the App Store etc are also its biggest benefits (e.g. walled garden model) and if you remove them then what you have is an Android competitor with no compelling advantages whatsoever and no ability to run Android apps.

Didn't people say the same thing about the iPod versus Plays4Sure almost a decade ago?

Dell with four times the market share of Apple just announced "great" profits of a little bit over $1 billion -- 4x times less than Apple.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[drinkypoo]

Didn't people say the same thing about the iPod versus Plays4Sure almost a decade ago?

Only dumb people. I think most of us knew that it would fail.

Dell with four times the market share of Apple just announced "great" profits of a little bit over $1 billion -- 4x times less than Apple.

This is not Apple vs. Dell, this is Apple vs. All PC Manufacturers. Further, profit is only one part of the equation. As long as Dell makes a profit it can stay in business, and it doesn't matter whether they make more than Apple or not. But again, Dell can go away and it won't help Apple.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[BasilBrush]

If history repeats itself, and there is no reason to believe that it will not

You're confused. If history were to repeat itself, then the players are these:

MacOS -> Apple iOS.
Microsoft Windows -> Microsoft Windows Mobile.
Linux -> Android.

Clearly history is NOT repeating itself, otherwise Microsoft would again have the market leadership. And Linux's market share would again be tiny.

Not only that, but we have a more recent and closer history to compare with. The MP3 player market. And despite every attempt from Microsoft and Linux based competitors; despite the attempt to widely license Plays For Sure, nothing unseated the iPod. (Integration of MP3 players into smartphones eventually lessened their importance, but iPod integration into iPhone again led that.)

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[The Phantom Mensch]

Is exactly the same battle as Apple vs. Microsoft a decade ago. And Apple will lose again for the same reasons: Inflated price, locked platform, and developer exclusion. Woz sees the obvious. Jobs apparently does not.

I keep hearing this argument that it is the same, and I don't see it at all. First and foremost Apple is not charging premium prices. The iPhone 4 retails for the same price as the comparable Android phones. OK, instead giving you a micro SD slot for expansion capacity they've given you a solid Gorilla glass and stainless steel phone body. It's a trade-off. At the $99 level they're selling the iPhone 3GS which is very competitive if not better on specs than what you can get elsewhere.

This is nothing like the Mac vs. PC market in sales price.

The applications market is again different. Apple still has the dominant applications market position and the easiest one to navigate. Android has great potential but it isn't winning the race yet and may never get there.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[drinkypoo]

You're confused. If history were to repeat itself, then the players are these:

Who cares who the players are? I'm only interested in the parts. The part of proprietary lock-in vendor will be played by Apple. The part of embrace and extend will be played by Google. The part of plucky also-ran will be played by Microsoft... hilariously. But then, that's how it's been for them in the cellphone market always.

Not only that, but we have a more recent and closer history to compare with. The MP3 player market.

Please explain how this is relevant to a more general computing market.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[whisper_jeff]

And Apple will lose again...

If Apple is losing, please sign me up to be a loser like them...

Hint: "Winning" isn't necessarily measured by market share.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[maxume]

Apple has better margins than the other box builder/consumer electronics hybrids (not all PC companies are particularly comparable to Apple these days; Dell and HP are pretty reasonable), but not better margins than Microsoft.

Selling the dominant operating system will probably always be cheaper than selling the hardware it runs on. Of course, operating systems are more and more treated as a commodity, so it all depends on whether people will continue to pay anything for Windows, and whether or not Microsoft can make good profits on $15 (which is still more than $0, but not punishingly more).

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[sorak]

Is exactly the same battle as Apple vs. Microsoft a decade ago. And Apple will lose again for the same reasons: Inflated price, locked platform, and developer exclusion. Woz sees the obvious. Jobs apparently does not.

Is Apple losing? Apple's in a really great spot - they're raking in cash. So is Microsoft, except that Apple is moving far less units than Dell, HP, Acer and other hardware manufacturers, so their actual costs per sale is lower and margins are higher.

They also only have 2 iPhone models out that's outselling individual Android phones out there. The only reason Android phones are "winning" is the sheer number of models of Android phones out there. They also rake in close to 50% of mobile industry profits, despite only having anywhere from 1-2% total mobile marketshare. All the other bigger companies (LG, Samsung, Nokia, RIM) are scrapping over the remaining half, despite accounting for over 90% of units shipped.

Yeah, Apple is losing. Apple's not participating in the race to the bottom, instead letting Dell, HP, Acer, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia compete against each other driving their margins and profits down.

Apple in 10 years? Well, I don't know. Just like I don't know where Microsoft willb e in 10 years. Or what Android will be in 10 years. Hell, in the past 10 years, we saw the rise and fall of PalmOS, and the rise and fall of Windows Mobile. Symbian's a bit longer lived. Android and iOS may not even exist in the next 5 years.

So, to sum this up...

Apple may be losing market share, but they make up for it by bundling their OS and hardware. This allows them to stifle competition, and gouge the customer, which keeps their profit margins high and their costs low.

Thank you, Mr Wosniak. I think our readers will find this very enlightening.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heheh, right. That's why a lot of people say 200,000 apps is better than 100,000 apps and / or trash the quality of the apps. I'll bet that if Android or any other OS takes over as the go-to OS, people will start migrating over.

You'd be surprised what market share will do to developers. Suddenly features found in the leader's apps aren't available for months on the secondary platform, or the app itself might even be completely missing. Thanks to everyone else's out-of-market install, any interested "4th party" can create an app to fill that void. even if the originating company objects to it. (i.e. if XKCD decided to complain about a non-official XKCD app -- i know, not likely but this is an example, there's still some available on the market or on someone's website regardless of what he says).

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[StikyPad]

Tell that to the people in the Wii thread.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[Karlt1]

Only dumb people. I think most of us knew that it would fail.

It was pretty much "common Slashdot wisdom" [sic] that "the same thing would happen to the iPod that happened to the Mac." because "open always wins".

Rob Glaser (ceo of Real Networks) said in 2003 that in 5 years the iPod would have around 5% of the market.

This is not Apple vs. Dell, this is Apple vs. All PC Manufacturers. Further, profit is only one part of the equation. As long as Dell makes a profit it can stay in business, and it doesn't matter whether they make more than Apple or not. But again, Dell can go away and it won't help Apple.

Even if you consider Apple versus the rest of the industry. It's still not a pretty picture. The five top PC vendors worldwide are HP, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, and Acer. Apple's market cap is larger than HP, Dell, and Lenovo combined. Acer and Toshiba aren't traded on the U.S. stock market. Apple's more profitable as of last quarter than HP, Dell, and Lenovo combined. (all numbers from finance.google.com)

As far as Acer, it's the biggest combination of suck in history == Acer + Gateway + Emachines + Packard Bell.

The PC companies have all but given up going after the most profitable part of the consumer PC market and basically let Apple have free reign.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[4phun]

@jartan why not take the time to ponder reality? If the iPhone part of Apple was a separate company it would NOW rank as the tenth most profitable company in the whole world, not just the USA but THE WHOLE WORLD!

Now I know this is slash dot but try to know something about your subject.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[BasilBrush]

Microsoft... hilariously. But then, that's how it's been for them in the cellphone market always.

And yet Microsoft have been doing exactly what they did with PC Windows. Licensing to all comers. And having freedom for anyone to distribute apps however they like. Just what you say are Android's advantages. And yet Microsoft has failed for a decade that way. Again proving your history repeating itself theory to be a bag of shit.

Please explain how this is relevant to a more general computing market.

That's your bag of shit theory. You explain it's relevance. Phones aren't in a "general computing market". Phones are phones. PCs are PCs. MP3 players are MP3 players. Consoles are consoles. But phones are embedded devices closer to MP3 players and consoles than they are to PCs.

Re:Apple vs. Android.

[Jartan]

You misunderstood completely. My point was that Apple can't possibly take over the market so they should just keep printing money.

Locking the iphone though (ie denying root) is dumb.

Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[wvmarle]

Who cares, really, whether a phone is running Android or iOS or Symbian or Wee-Go or whatever embedded OS?

The underlying OS is irrelevant.

It's the user interface that counts. That and only that. The underlying OS just has to be good enough, that's all. That's what made Windows win over other OSes. And that's what's making iOS so popular at the moment in the phone world.

Most people don't care which OS it's really running. They care what you can do with it, and how easy this can be done. That's it, and that's all about it.

In case of phones the underlying hardware even doesn't matter much any more, except maybe for the screen (integral to the user interface of course). Current phones are mainly using ARM based processors, but for the end user it could have been anything. It could have been an Intel or AMD as far as they are concerned. Oh well they'd complain about battery life probably. And for the rest buyers tend to look at stuff like built-in bluetooth, GPS, camera - those parts "are there" or "are not there", no-one knows or really cares about the maker of those parts, as long as it works.

And as soon as a phone builder comes out with a phone that looks at least as good as an iPhone, that has a user interface that is more responsive and easier to use, then they may eat the iPhone's lunch. And that's got nothing to do with which OS they're running from the user's pov. We geeks know that it will be Android due to its open source nature, but there may be other candidates out there as well.

And Apple had better be careful not to get too arrogant. They're now on top of the game, but the mobile phone market is moving way faster than the personal computer market. On average people buy a new phone every six months (and no I don't make up that number, it's widely reported in the newspapers and other sources), and they expect to find interesting new models by then, while a personal computer or laptop is replaced only every three years or so, and even then buyers are mainly looking at hardware specs over software features.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[overtly_demure]

On average people buy a new phone every six months

I sincerely hope that's not true. That would be unconscionably wasteful. And for what? Incremental improvements in one frivolous function or other? Or do they just not last more than six months? It sounds a bit dubious, given that the contract periods are typically at least a year long.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[wvmarle]

You're from US?

Welcome to the free world - over here (Hong Kong) we have plans, usually no contracts. Discounts on phones (for those who opt for it) are given in the form of pre-payment and discount later on your monthly bills.

Phones and plans are not much related. Sim cards are freely exchangeable, and you can switch easily between carriers (it takes only a few days to port over your number).

And yes Hong Kong people are known to buy, on average, a new phone every six months. Crazy I agree, but that's the reality. After all, you don't want to be seen with the previous generation iPhone, do you?

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[Time_Ngler]

Hong Kong, the special administration region of China, is the free world?

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[wvmarle]

Very much, it's the free world. Not sure whether you're trolling or not but some explanation appears to be in place.

If you think it is the same as China, think again. It belongs politically to China but for the rest in practice it's more like an independent country.

Hong Kong is one of the free-est countries in the world, ranking nr. 1 in the Heritage Foundation list for economic freedom (this compared to the US which comes in at nr 8).

It's a free port, little restrictions to capital flow with a freely convertible currency, open immigration policy, with a government that is maybe even more pro-business than the US is (and yes that government is a major problem but luckily it stays mostly out of the way). Hong Kong also has press freedom (a decent nr. 34 on the Reporters without Borders 2010 list - China is near the bottom on nr 171).

It's also a place with a strong rule of law and a fair, highly respected justice system and police, and one of the lowest corruption rates in the world, ranking 15th on the "corruption perception index 2010", two places higher than the US.

Furthermore Hong Kong is slowly but surely moving towards full democracy, so that government thingy will be solved too. Freedom of press is also being protected furiously - remember 2003 when about half a million people (or a full 7% of the total population!) went to the streets to protect those freedoms.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[wvmarle]

Very much, it's the free world. Not sure whether you're trolling or not but some explanation appears to be in place. If you think it is the same as China, think again. It belongs politically to China but for the rest in practice it's more like an independent country. Hong Kong is one of the free-est countries in the world, ranking nr. 1 in the Heritage Foundation list for economic freedom (this compared to the US which comes in at nr 8). It's a free port, little restrictions to capital flow with a freely convertible currency, open immigration policy, with a government that is maybe even more pro-business than the US is (and yes that government is a major problem but luckily it stays mostly out of the way). Hong Kong also has press freedom (a decent nr. 34 on the Reporters without Borders 2010 list - China is near the bottom on nr 171). It's also a place with a strong rule of law and a fair, highly respected justice system and police, and one of the lowest corruption rates in the world, ranking 15th on the "corruption perception index 2010", two places higher than the US. Furthermore Hong Kong is slowly but surely moving towards full democracy, so that government thingy will be solved too. Freedom of press is also being protected furiously - remember 2003 when about half a million people (or a full 7% of the total population!) went to the streets to protect those freedoms.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[wvmarle]

Sorry previous one went wrong; now with paragraph breaks!

Very much, it's the free world. Not sure whether you're trolling or not but some explanation appears to be in place.

If you think it is the same as China, think again. It belongs politically to China but for the rest in practice it's more like an independent country.

Hong Kong is one of the free-est countries in the world, ranking nr. 1 in the Heritage Foundation list for economic freedom (this compared to the US which comes in at nr 8).

It's a free port, little restrictions to capital flow with a freely convertible currency, open immigration policy, with a government that is maybe even more pro-business than the US is (and yes that government is a major problem but luckily it stays mostly out of the way). Hong Kong also has press freedom (a decent nr. 34 on the Reporters without Borders 2010 list - China is near the bottom on nr 171).

It's also a place with a strong rule of law and a fair, highly respected justice system and police, and one of the lowest corruption rates in the world, ranking 15th on the "corruption perception index 2010", two places higher than the US.

Furthermore Hong Kong is slowly but surely moving towards full democracy, so that government thingy will be solved too. Freedom of press is also being protected furiously - remember 2003 when about half a million people (or a full 7% of the total population!) went to the streets to protect those freedoms.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[Time_Ngler]

How do you see Hong Kong going towards a democracy when they are now part of China? Why would the PRC give up control of what they consider they own?

I doubt that Hong Kong is going towards a democracy, but is rather being slowly assimilated back into the PRC. As soon as China took over voting was the first thing they pulled. Also, children there are now being taught Mandarin in schools. It'll probably be a lot like Shanghai in 10 years.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[wvmarle]

really starting to risk off-topic mods here :)

Anyway:

1) it is written in the Basic Law (called a mini-constitution) that Hong Kong will move to direct election of the Chief Executive (head of the SAR government) and legislative council (think UK lower house). That was a "parting gift" of the colonial government, making it a legal requirement.

2) the discussion is going on, and constitutional reform is taking place, albeit slowly. Talk is now for 2017/2020 to have direct elections.

3) Hong Kong can keep it's capitalist system for 50 years from the 1997 handover, after which it will fully become part of China.

On the last point, many people say that this is to allow China to catch up with Hong Kong, not the other way around. It's also in China's interest to allow Hong Kong to develop towards democracy: they need Hong Kong badly economically (payments for China trade largely involve Hong Kong banks), and Hong Kong this way can act as "testing ground" for democracy in China.

Children are being taught Mandarin in schools, just like they learn English (and that's a good thing of course, both languages are important). The main language however remains Cantonese - if schools were to switch teaching language then English is the more likely candidate. Not Mandarin. There are already lots of international schools teaching in English, very few schools are teaching in Mandarin.

Hong Kong may be a lot like Shanghai in 10, 20 years from now - they have a lot in common already (high rises, traffic jams, air pollution). But that will be mainly Shanghai catching up with Hong Kong. And as long as the RMB is not going to be freely convertible (which is presumably a long long time off), Shanghai as an international financial centre is just not going to happen. Besides, Shanghai may have the hardware, they miss the software: strong and stable banking organisations, little corruption, strong rule of law, transparent government, experienced bankers/lawyers/economists, etc. It just isn't there to the level it's in Hong Kong already.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[zaphirplane]

I replied, so that perhaps your eyes (and your fellow country men & women) are opened, and you don't believe the propaganda, I don't mean offence or to put you or Hong Kong down.

sorry, but free world or free country is associated with democracy.
economic freedom or free market is different, a good thing (for the greater good) but different.
a free port, is also something else, that's a tax status.

corruption *perception* not sure how it's measured, but I presume it's not the same as actual corruption rates, in any event there are some democratic countries with higher *rates* of *actual* corruption than dictatorships.
UAE a kingdom is less corrupt than Israel, Spain, Portugal, Taiwan. Also Jordan a kingdom is less corrupt that Italy, Greece.
http://www.worldaudit.org/corruption.htm

That government "thingy" is important for free / freedom, you can't just wave that aside as a small "thingy"!
How does Hong Kong rank for democratically elected government, how does it rank in freedom of speech, freedom of press?, civil liberty?

It ranks high, in money generating, foreign investment bringing ....
brb someone is at the door http://articles.cnn.com/2010-11-17/us/websites.chinese.servers_1_web-traffic-china-telecom-security-review-commission?_s=PM:US

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[wvmarle]

I replied, so that perhaps your eyes (and your fellow country men & women) are opened, and you don't believe the propaganda,

I live in the place; am not a native; and am like many around me highly critical of both the Hong Kong and central government.

corruption *perception* not sure how it's measured, but I presume it's not the same as actual corruption rates,

Agreed. However Hong Kong is worldwide considered as a really clean city when it comes to corruption; largely thanks to the great work done by the ICAC.

How does Hong Kong rank for democratically elected government, how does it rank in freedom of speech, freedom of press?, civil liberty?

Press freedom, as I wrote already, is nr 34 in the world. Not great, but not bad at all too. And it's defended vigorously. I have yet to hear about someone put behind bars for saying something the government doesn't like. And I hear so often the government complaining about criticism by the press - not that they dare to do anything about it, it does indicate the press is doing their job.

And for democracy: half of legco is now democratically elected, that must improve. But with the freedom of protest people power works: serious discontent and the 2003 pro-democracy march is what toppled the then-CE Tung Che-Hwa. That was a major embarrassment for the central government but they had no choice. So maybe not direct elections, the people have a voice and it's listened to. Soap-box democracy you could call it.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[BasilBrush]

And as soon as a phone builder comes out with a phone that looks at least as good as an iPhone, that has a user interface that is more responsive and easier to use, then they may eat the iPhone's lunch.

That's what they kept saying about iPod competitors. Never happened.

We geeks know that it will be Android due to its open source nature

That's what you "geeks" kept saying about Linux on the desktop. Never happened.

On average people buy a new phone every six months (and no I don't make up that number, it's widely reported in the newspapers and other sources)

That's wrong. It's never been less than a year, because so many people swap phones at the end of contract periods, and they are almost always a year or longer. Google quickly shows US average replacement time is 20.5 months, and globally as 14 months.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[BasilBrush]

Hong Kong is tiny and not typical of anything. Try taking a world view.

And iPhones come out once per year, not twice.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[Time_Ngler]

Yea, but it's debatable how democratic Hong Kong will actually get. China has a track record of not always playing by the rules. And China moving to a democracy in 37 years? Hmm.. there might be a chance, but right now they are really very much a dictatorship, and I don't see much progress.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I care about portability of apps, for when I want to change my phone. If iOS was available on 3rd-party phones I'd be much happier to buy apps for it. As it is, Android apps are a better investment.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[wvmarle]

We geeks know that it will be Android due to its open source nature

That's what you "geeks" kept saying about Linux on the desktop. Never happened.

OK I shouldn't have said "source" there.

At the moment the only two serious smart-phone OSes are iOS and Android. iOS is available on the iPhone. Android is available on the rest. Unless Apple can dominate the mobile phone market as they dominate the music player market, Android will have more devices out there. Android is open: any mobile phone maker can take it and use it. Little restriction.

Thinking of the desktop, Windows vs. Mac OS: same point. OS/2 was the only serious contender, until MS killed it off in favour of Win 95. Mac OS, currently OS-X, is for Apple hardware only. Windows can be taken by any desktop computer maker, and installed on it. Yes a license fee has to be paid, but MS will sell a license to anyone willing to pay. And now they have so much critical mass on the desktop that it's really hard for newcomers to break in.

On average people buy a new phone every six months (and no I don't make up that number, it's widely reported in the newspapers and other sources)

That's wrong. It's never been less than a year, because so many people swap phones at the end of contract periods, and they are almost always a year or longer. Google quickly shows US average replacement time is 20.5 months, and globally as 14 months.

OK Hong Kong may not be representative... here it's something like a six-month cycle. Japan is not far behind. And the US is still pretty much a mobile backwater with limited options, and phones linked to specific carriers and so restricting choice even further.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[wvmarle]

Yes, China is still a disaster in that respect. But it's not a dictatorship: there is no single dictator in power, they have a premier and president that rotate regularly. Indeed no democratic elections or anything, but still not really a dictatorship.

Mainland politicians do know that they have to change, though. But it's hard to do it "orderly and gradually" as they like to call it. You see it in the tiny RMB/USD rate changes. You see it in the bits and pieces of RMB accounts in Hong Kong. They try to open up. And a moment later they put some dissident in jail again.

Re:Who cares about iOS or Android, really?

[BasilBrush]

Unless Apple can dominate the mobile phone market as they dominate the music player market, Android will have more devices out there.

And that's a big proviso. The mobile phone market is closer to the MP3 player market than the desktop OS market. And despite the hundreds of so called "iPod killers" coming along, Apple retained market leadership. At first because they had the best user experience out there, both the devices themselves, and the seamless way that you could buy downloads for it. The one chance the competitors had was to undercut. But then Apple showed that they could do inexpensive devices too. The first iPod was $399. Now the entry level is $49.

Android is taking off, not because of it's openness, but because it's cheap. Take a look at web stats and you'll see that 4.5 times as many people are using iOS to access the web as Android. Take a look at app sales and the gap is even bigger. People who really want to use the "smart" of a smartphone tend to buy iPhones. Android sales are dominated by people buying something cheap that still looks impressive.

Apple's reaction now will likely be the same as it was with iPod. They own the top end already. They'll now start making cheaper phones. And they have the buying power to beat every manufacturer in the industry on components and manufacturing cost, except perhaps Nokia. Given a choice of phones at a similar price, most people will buy a genuine iPhone rather than an Android copy.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[RocketRabbit]

Traffic does not make a site first rate, in my book. Engadget is a shitty site filled with useless advertainment. So what if more people click on it per day.

Popular Science has a bigger circulation than the American Physical Society journal. That does not make Popular Science "better" although it is certainly more profitable.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot doesn't even get a rate newfag.

Android is not crap

[codepunk]

Android of course is not crappy but it is no competitor yet to the iphone. The device fragmentation is horrific yet, hopefully at some point that will work itself out. My roommate has a droid myself the iphone she is constantly fighting the more difficult to navigate interface. She is not a techno junkie and finds it much more difficult to work with due to the additional flexibility in the interface. The other issue is performance, the performance is just not there running mainly jvm code. Hopefully at some point Google just gets fed up with the whole jvm deal and just ejects is for native code execution.

It's not about your apps on IOS

[SharpFang]

I believe the apps you have may be better than their Android counterparts. But it's all about apps you don't have.

I'm typing this on a tram from a netbook tethered to my Android phone. How good is your tethering app?
When I browse from the phone, I see clean web due to adblock. How good is your adblock?
If I want my phone to last over a week, I downclock the CPU to 1/4 the original speed and disable all peripherials except GSM radio. It's still usable as a phone. How good is your overclocking/downclocking app?
Oh, and I have some shell scripts to do some work-related calculations. Good luck with your programming languages on your phone.

Re:It's not about your apps on IOS

[khchung]

I'm typing this on a tram from a netbook tethered to my Android phone. How good is your tethering app?

I am typing this directly on my iPhone, why do I need to carry another computer with me? Without carrying a PC, why should I care how good/bad is my tethering app?

I don't see any flash ads at all, why do I need another ad-block app? I have no intention of writing programs on my phone, why should I care why programming tools are there? I have an external battery to carry, and I have iPhone charger in my car, why would I want to mess with my phone's clock speed? You sounded just like the Linux fans of old who keep telling windows users how great it is that he can compile the kernel while doing other things! Yeah, but why do we need to keep recompiling the kernel?

This is the problem with you Android fans, you guys keep insisting that iPhone users are missing out this feature and that function, when in fact, this are what iPhone users have already looked and determined that we do not want or do not need them!

Is it so hard to understand that not everyone uses their phone like you do? Nor will we ever want to?

How about you guys learn to respect the choice other people made and stop evangelize your platform whenever iPhones are mentioned?

Re:It's not about your apps on IOS

[teh kurisu]

I'm typing this on a tram from a netbook tethered to my Android phone. How good is your tethering app?

It does the job. When my office's broadband connection went down a few weeks, tethered my iPhone and was back up and running in a few minutes. Fortunately there's a 3G Vodafone mast right outside the building.

Re:It's not about your apps on IOS

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need any of this.
Because Steve said so.
And you never dared to try.
Also, >1kb of text on a screen keyboard. fucking masochistic idiot.

Re:It's not about your apps on IOS

[tycoex]

Actually, Android was mentioned in this article also. In fact, the article is more or less an attack on Android and a defense of iOS. Saying that he is evangelizing his platform when an iPhone was mentioned makes absolutely no sense.

You must be so used to being scorned by Android fans that you automatically jump to the conclusion that everyone who defends android is some over-zealous apple hater.

"Is it so hard to understand that not everyone uses their phone like you do? Nor will we ever want to?"

I must say, this is more or less the argument that follows from every tech gadget in existence:

PS3 owners like to champion that they can watch blu-ray movies, their game disks can hold up to 50gigs of data, the PS3 has built in wifi, ect. But the 360 fans argue that they will never use any of these things so they don't care.

People who buy decked out PCs with 8gigs of ram and 2,000 dollars worth of stuff like the fact that they can do whatever they want with their computer. Sure, they might not ever actually use that capability, but it exists IF they ever need it.

It's the same thing with Android. Sure, SOME people won't ever use that capability, but if they do it exists.

It boils down to this, different devices are better for different people. Some people are perfectly willing to give up extra capability to have a more polished UI. Some people prefer the more customizable UI to a more polished one. Some people prefer the iOS marketplace, where they (for the most part) shouldn't have to worry about viruses or other things since apps are approved. Some people prefer the open-ness of Android's market and are willing to deal with malicious apps as necessary.

It really is just personal preference.

De Telegraaf is a glossy-meets-newspaper.

[Barryke]

"De Telegraaf" interviewed him? No wonder.. they are not thrustworthy in my oppinion.

De Telegraaf is a glossy magazine in newspaper format. Its mostly about what A said about B, what B thinks about this, and what the newspaper speculates C has to do with it.
It also recently bought Hyves.nl, the dutch Facebook.com. Not sure why.
It has the worst page layout i've ever seen in a newspaper. I recon each issue contains every font known to man, in all font sizes upto 3cm, and tries to apply every font style and linespacing imaginable.
It often posts bullshit stories only to rectify them the day after -with another huge headline- as if its the news itself. Just like American newschannels do.

Re:De Telegraaf is a glossy-meets-newspaper.

[Barryke]

opinion, sorry.

Re:De Telegraaf is a glossy-meets-newspaper.

[Anonymous Coward]

So is coming from Woz's mouth not good enough for you? Notice he corrected the quality issue, but not the marketshare issue. It's what he said, so get over it.

IMHO, with marketshare comes quality, especially with an open-source project -- more developers like Cyanogen improve the software regardless of what big corporations want us to have.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[catchy_handle]

Just to be technically specific, a high SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) is good. High signal, low noise. I think you meant the SNR on Engadget is so darned low.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[wintermute000]

Lol point taken

Wrong, many fewer well-off Windows developers

[SuperKendall]

Far less than the number of people who have turned the price of a Windows license and a MSDN subscription into a shit ton of cash, I assure you.

And you base that one what?

The fact is that many, many IOS developers have made a reasonable sum of money. Some may not yet make enough to do that full time, but it's good supplimental income.

In order for your statement to have any truth whatsoever, there would have to be THOUSANDS of very successful Windows indie apps. Are there really? Or is the truth that one Windows pretty much the only people making a lot of money are in fact large companies like Adobe (and of course Microsoft) and big game companies, along with a handful of indie game developers. But the absolute number of Windows developers with a "shit ton of cash" is OBVIOUSLY far less than iOS developers, because there simply are not that many huge indie success stories on Windows as there have been on iOS.

I've been to every WWDC since the iPhone SDK came out (my reasoning being if I was going to do development full time I wanted to make a commitment to learn the platform as well as possible and network with fellow developers). You know what I saw even at the first one? A TON of .Net developers. Now if far more people could easily generate cash on Windows why exactly would they be learning iOS development?

In all my life I've never seen a platform where so many developers went independent so quickly for a new platform and could do that full time. For a lot of people some of that income may be consulting on iOS development but it still counts for the concept of paying just $99 for a year to participate in a very active platform with a lot of revenue potential from many angles.

The Only Reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason Android phones are "winning" is the sheer number of models of Android phones out there.

Of course, there is ONLY ever one reason.... sure. If you say so.

What about all the customers who either can't stand AT&T, don't have adequate coverage wherever they live or work, or believe that Apple is handing them a platform that is locked down in order to benefit Apple's bottomline first and foremost? Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile couldn't be competitive and have customers that are loyal of locked in to their regular 2-year contracts? Cost of service couldn't have anything to do with costomer's decisions, could it?

No... it MUST be just as simple as you say. Otherwise the world might be a complex place.

D'oh!

No, not really

[SmallFurryCreature]

"De Telegraaf" is not that right-wing. THAT would be a political view. Its view of the world is more "against". Not against left or right, just against. Immigrants? Against. Deporting immigrants? Against. Restrictions on immigrants? Against.

It will one day warn of the risks of 2nd hand smoke, then next day run an article that bans on smoking are bad. If anything the Telegraaf is the Teaparty. They don't have any ideas, they just know everyone elses ideas suck.

The Sun and Fox News have very clear political agenda's. When The Sun backed Labour this was clear throughout its pages. De Telegraaf isn't clear on a single page. That makes it far harder to deal with. How do you deal with a newspaper and its audience that in one paper can argue against a powerplant being build in an area AND argue that we got to cut through this red tape and get powerplants build? Impossible. It is the ultimate NIMBY newspaper.

All the other newspapers in Holland however are just as unclear. For instance shouldn't the Volkskrant (left) be more worried about the effects of immigrants on wages? Shouldn't Elsevier (right) be more honest about business demand for cheap immigrant labour?

That is the real reason The Telegraaf is so hated (and the most read), it is sure to upset everyone, except its readers.

Re:No, not really

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

It will one day warn of the risks of 2nd hand smoke, then next day run an article that bans on smoking are bad. If anything the Telegraaf is the Teaparty. They don't have any ideas, they just know everyone elses ideas suck.
Since 90% of everything sucks nowadays, that seems to be a pretty safe bet to make.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[Anonymous Coward]

"instead of linking us to the information directly, we get a link to a poor writeup on a third-rate PR web site, possibly without an actual link to anything more relevant?"

So Engadget is the third-rate PR web site in this case? I hate to burst your bubble, but Engadget gets 4x the visitors that slashdot does, 2 million vs 500k, so really we're the third-rate website

Also slashdot stories are user submitted, so it only makes sense that their would be links to stories written by writers that (hopefully) do research.

The problem with Engadget is that it's horrendously biased and always has been a HUGE Apple fanboy.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[KiloByte]

Sheer numbers don't say anything about your quality. Being read by a small part of general public, while bigger in absolute numbers, means you are less relevant than something read by a significant portion of sysadmins/programmers/etc.

Or, are you going to say the likes of People or Cosmo are suddenly of higher quality than any of the above?

Re:Sorry Woz

[delinear]

Having experience of both Android market place and the App store, I can say that both suffer from a high rate of dross to a low rate of gems. There are probably more gems on the App store (understandable, it's been around longer and it attracted the first big wave of mobile app developers in this new generation of smart-phones for the masses), but you still have to wade through a lot of rubbish to find them. The one thing that really surprises me about Android is just how difficult it is to find decent apps - not that they aren't there, but simply that the search interface isn't up to the task. I generally really like my Desire, but I would have thought the one thing Google could absolutely nail (and maybe leapfrog ahead of Apple) is the ability to search for apps. At the moment it's much better to use a third party website or a service like Appbrain than it is to look for apps on the phone.

Like slashdot then?

[Anonymous Coward]

see? I'm NOT new here.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[Mr_Silver]

This is so true. A comment here has no credibility in and of itself but there WILL be serious physicists posting on a physics story here. The same with any other scientific, technical, or engineering article.

Unfortunately it still doesn't seem to work. I've seen plenty of articles where I am reasonably knowledgeable about the subject (either having worked in that area or because it is my product!) and yet there are plenty of uninformed comments which are then voted up by uninformed moderators.

I've tried posting but often my comments never get voted up because they go against what the current +5 opinion is. After a while I just don't bother any more.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[Superken7]

Thats funny, because its similar to what Woz said about iOS vs Android. Quantity over Quality (in his opinion).

Screw 'em both!

[AVryhof]

Really, screw Android, and Screw iOS..... I want to see MeeGo come out, and do well. I want to see the companies making all of this fancy Android stuff start using MeeGo. According to some pages I have seen, it can run Android apps, and I absolutely love the interface.

If the OSS community embraced it, and built a Yum repo with mobile OSS Apps, it could dominate.

The lock down in iOS, and fragmentation in Android are the weak points in the two. If the community worked with the MeeGo foundation to make it real easy for OSS apps to work with it, we would all have a safe harbour to run to.

Re:Screw 'em both!

[drinkypoo]

Really, screw Android, and Screw iOS..... I want to see MeeGo come out, and do well.

Kind of makes you wonder where MeeGo would be now if Intel didn't waste all that time making MeeGo 1.0 incompatible with non-intel hardware. So much effort put into incompatibility, and then just discarded...

The lock down in iOS, and fragmentation in Android are the weak points in the two. If the community worked with the MeeGo foundation to make it real easy for OSS apps to work with it, we would all have a safe harbour to run to.

Uh, what makes you think MeeGo won't end up just as fragmented? The average user is not going to add repos to their phone.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[drinkypoo]

I have engadget in my google reader but I usually come here to comment, at least in part because Discus comment system is pure shit. That is, even worse than slashdot's comment system.

Getting tired of people knocking android apps

[brunes69]

Look - making remarks like iOS is better than Android because app X is better on iOS is nonsensical.

You can make very high quality apps in Android, just like you can make very shitty apps in iOS. Both platforms have great developer communities.

Android arguably gives more capabilities to the developer, while iOS arguably forces more UI consistency between apps.

Neither of these things themselves make an app great. As usual, it is not the tools that matter it is what you do with those tools.

Bashing Android as a platform because Facebook on iOS is better makes no sense. It's like saying "Java is obviously a better programming language than C++ because Eclipse is the best IDE and it is written in Java".

The only reason Facebook on iOS is better is because Facebook is putting more money into iOS. If the number of Android handsets starts dwarfing the number of iOS handsets (which it appears in all liklihood is going to happen in 2011), Facebook would be INSANE to not shift more resources toward their Android development.

The same holds true for all app developers. App makers go where the money is.

Re:Getting tired of people knocking android apps

[VortexCortex]

The same holds true for all app developers. App makers go where the money is.

Not true. This app developer doen't give a shit about the money. There are more hobbyists than you think, and they also scratch their own itches for the sake of scratching itches.

The multitide of free and cheap apps made by hobbyists lends many zeros to the number of apps in Apple's app store -- a number Apple is very proud of.

Clearly, some app developers scratch their itches with the easiest to reach back scratcher.

Re:Getting tired of people knocking android apps

[radish]

The quality & quantity of available application software doesn't affect the appeal of an OS, for sure, but it absolutely does affect the appeal of a platform. Linux is a great OS, but I run Windows largely because of the application software available for it. Android is also a great OS, but the application software (that I'm interested in) is better on iOS, so that's what I use. If the situation changes I reserve the right to change my mind :)

When it comes to phones it's the whole package that counts - OS, hardware, third party apps, and services like stores. Android's doing well on a couple of those dimensions but has a way to go on others.

Re:Getting tired of people knocking android apps

[aristotle-dude]

Look, of course you can create the same quality of app, ignoring UI consistency with other apps, but it can take a greater deal of effort to do the same things on Android that you take for granted on iOS. The frameworks provided by iOS give a lot of things practically for free which have to then be implemented from scratch by the developer on Android.

Ease of development is one of the main draws to iOS for developer. Facebook is better on iOS because it is easier to implement on iOS than Android. Stop drinking the FOSS koolaid.

Re:Slashdot is just driving traffic to worthless s

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't a high SNR (Signal/Noise Ratio) be a good thing? I guess it depends on the reference signal...

I agree with your point, /. seems to reward quality comment over poop slinging and chest beating.

Re:technically

[TaoPhoenix]

Awww, no one else caught the loop?

Here is a technical reply to a post that says you can sometimes get technical replies here!

Significant figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely AppsLib has had at least $1 of revenue (so Apple only accounts for nearly 100% of pmp app revenue).

Remember significant figures from chemistry class? Anything above 99.50% rounds to 100%.

iOS is more than the iPhone

[aristotle-dude]

If you were to compare Android sales to iOS sales by including non-phone devices on both sides, iOS would come out the clear winner.

If you were to look at install base, it would be no contest. Not only are Android sales smaller but their install base really fragmented whereas most iOS devices are at least at 3.x.

For clarification ...

[LoudMusic]

Just for clarification, everyone is aware that WOZ is a bit loony, yes? I mean, the guy is brilliant. But the most brilliant people are often quite loony and difficult to understand. Their thoughts are so out there and constantly hopping between one stream of consciousness and another that often times things get jumbled up. That's actually how they come up with new radical ideas and improve old technologies so rapidly. But it's difficult for them to purvey their ideas to others because, honestly, they often have difficulty sorting things out for themselves.

Also, he very likely could have convinced himself of one Earth shattering revelation and spoke it to the media then moments later realized how preposterous it was and made more dramatic claims. He co-founded Apple, became famous, retired, and now he's your crazy uncle that every geek loves because they want to be him.