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Samsung Withdraws Counter-Suit Against Apple
tekgoblin writes "Samsung has withdrawn a counter-suit against Apple in their ongoing legal battle which concerns similarities in the iOS device lineup against the Galaxy S lineup from Samsung. The counter-suit concerned the design of the user interface being very similar to that of Samsung's: 'related to fundamental innovations that increase mobile device reliability, efficiency, and quality, and improve user interface in mobile handsets and other products.'"
The issue is not whether Apple or Samsung are right - it's that this shit is patentable in the first place.
they've consolidated them to focus on their defence in this suit.
You mean "pussies".
Already having an effect I suspect. While not directly related, I think Samsung sees the writing on the 4G wall...
If only Apple would withdraw it's lawsuit against Samsung over the same ridiculous "look and feel" claim. Why should either Samsung or Apple have exclusive rights over what's ultimately a rectangular grid of icons? It would be like giving the company that released the first touch-tone phone exclusive rights over the layout and appearance of the touch-tone keypad.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Well, don't use Kies then, it's not like anyone is forcing you?
And why on earth would you want to keep the default ROM on *any* Android phone?
I'm very happy with my Samsung phone.
But each to their own, hope you'll find iPhone does it for you.
Since Samsung has announced that they will officially cooperate with Cyanogenmod, and *stop locking down their phones* based on community feedback ... good luck with that on Apple.
Samsung has their problems, sure, but they are WAY more open and supportive to a non-locked-down environment than Apple has ever been.
I'm the one who keeping the default/stock ROM (JVQ), but with Odin
The current state of cooked galaxyS ROM is bad, battery, camera, radio is not at usable level. UI is a different story, the only ROM I found has a usable and nice UI is MIUI, CM7 is good but the stock application is too bad.
Android has some good potential, but it should has some good user-interface and a good set of default application, in this field iPhone is the best.
Well, I wanted to upgrade to an official release. But apparently I won't be able to.
Of course I can go down the path of Odin, Cyanogen, etc but this is a CONSUMER APPLIANCE. It's supposed to be easy!
"why would I want to use the default ROM" same as above. Why should I have to 'fix' the products I buy?! What if there's a regression.
I like tinkering, I tried several things to make Kies run on Virtualbox under linux (but apparently that's not the issue)
"Oh but Apple is more closed than Android" yes, but they manage the updates. I have guaranteed official upgrades for a couple of versions. And I can always JB if I want.
Not to mention the GPS on the iPhone is not slow
how long until
That seems to be 100% right. Samsung is still asserting the same claims, but now in the lawsuit Apple originally launched against them. They've also raised Apple another two patents.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Too bad Palm is sort of out of business. They came up with the buttons-below-the-touchscreen concept that's been copied by just about every touchscreen-enabled device since 1997.
(Which reminds me... Sony, please, please make new Clies!!1 Thank you.)
0x or or snor perron?!
I have a Galaxy S
wtf is Kies? It didn't come with my galaxy s
And whats wrong with anything else? Battery life on the S is far superior than the N1, and beyond that, the S is pretty much the same as the N1 give or take a few gimmicks. *shrug*
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
I don't use Kies for that! USB storage works, CDC_ACM works (heh, that's a huge advantage over the iPhone)
I only wanted to use Kies for fw upgrade.
how long until
motherfucker
not galaxy S, Nexus S
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
"two" "words" "enough" and "said".
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
The entire point of Android is openness and flexibility. If you do not like the stock manufacture-themed flavor of Android on your phone, you can use an app like Rom Manager to change to a different one. Can you do that on an iPhone? In Soviet Russia, rhetorical questions ask you.
As far as the battery being bad, you're doing it wrong. With no OS tweaks, and using just the stock Samsung ROM on the Captivate, battery is on par with any other smartphone. Sure, if you have your bluetooth, wifi, and gps permanently turned on, and your screen brightness cranked to maximum, you will run out of juice - but really, if that's how you're operating, your iPhone, your Blackberry and even your laptop will run out of juice as well. Forgetting stock for a moment though, using apps like Juice Defender to manager resource hogs, using a kernel that lets you undervolt and set different power regulators (eg, turn CPU to 100mhz when screen is off, etc) and making sure your application data-sync settings are set to realistic intervals will do magic for your battery life. In Sovie Russia, power manages you.
If you're using Android and complaining about the UI, you're doing it wrong. There is simply no other mobile operating system that provides you with so much easy customization. Even on your stock ROM you can download a different (and free) launcher from the market - say ADW. It will give you so much customization (and preset themes) that you will find it difficult to stop tinkering. You like the MIUI interface? Swell, just download the ADW MIUI theme and use it on your stock ROM. Choice is good, no?
Finally... are you really complaining about default-bloatware? Don't like an application? Uninstall it. Want a different application to use as a system default? Download it. From replacing your text messaging software, to the soft keyboard, to the camera, to the email client, to the browser, to the system launcher... Android gives you choice.
The only real problem with Android is that it treats people as intelligent beings who will make rational choices and decisions. As Apple dwarfs almost every other technology firm, a few things are made clear: people are fickle, buy image and brands over features and benefits, and there are more stupid people on the planet than intelligent ones. I'm not saying anyone who uses an Apple product is in this category, there are many legitimate reasons to use an iPhone or an iOS device over anything else. What I'm saying, however, is that Apple has very specifically targeted the "dumb market" and lures them in with an unparalleled branding and marketing strategy that has people who shouldn't own a calculator buying $700 smartphones.
Google played this one brilliantly, Android is here and the irony is delicious. Apple lost the original Mac vs PC war at the onset due to control-freak behavior. They guarded their technical details jealously, IBM did not, it became easier to write for IBM hardware, clones began to appear, etc, etc, etc. Perhaps that didn't work out too well for IBM as a company, since their core business was consumer hardware and they lost that to clones, but Apple was the bigger loser. $DEITY smiled on them and gave them a second chance in the personal electronics and mobile computing realms. Rather than learn from the past and avoid losing the market again due to the same kind of control-freak behavior, they are doing the exact same thing again. In a decade, Android will be ubiquitous because every hardware maker gets to use it, and iOS devices will once again be relegated to a tiny share of the market. The technology market moves and shakes very quickly. All it will take is one line of highly successful Android MP3 players, phones, or tablets to completely reshape the field. All it will take is a sophisticated branding campaign from a hardware manufacturer who is saving millions on developing their own operating system and diverting those funds into marketing. It's not a matter of if, but rather, when. As for Google, they just wanted a mobile OS to eat advertising revenue from, and that's exactly what they got.
Even after dropping the countersuit in California, Samsung is still suing Apple in eight different courts, six countries, and three continents. [source]
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Flashing another firmware _is_ easy, altough it wipes your device so I recommend an investment of 4$ in "MyBackup Pro" - having daily backups is worth every penny on ANY device. I can recommend DarkyRom.com, it just works(TM). If you want over-the-air (OTA) Updates, I can recommend HTC or Google Nexus series, altough I'll stick with Samsung if they keep the pace. Seriously, Android Phones should never have to be plugged into computers (except maybe for charging and usb-tethering) and work fairly well without any of that computer-based software voodoo.
You want to talk irony ? All the things you mention in your post are things people absolutely hated about windows. The fact that you had to reinstall it, then tweak it, then download a ton of applications to make it useful, etc. People spent decades lamenting the fact Windows won out and now it's being held up as a paragon, a shining example of why Android will win over iOS. Now THAT'S irony.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
OK, I call bullshit on this one. I had an iPhone 3G - I had to update it to get some additional functionality. It broke bluetooth for my headpiece and my car. It took Apple SIX MONTHS to fix it and release something. This affected more than half of their client base. And guess what? I couldn't downgrade. I was stuck for that time with no bluetooth.
Great. I'll tell my mom all about this.....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That's a backwards argument. You don't NEED to reinstall, tweak or download applications to make Android useful. Out of the box, a Samsung Captivate running Samsung's Touchwiz Android can do everything an iPhone can do, as well as many things iPhone's can't (eg. Swype).
If that is all you want out of your phone, great, unpack, power up, enjoy.
If, however, you are inclined to explore, Android allows for that in a way that iOS does not. That is the point I'm making, so comparing modern android to Window's BSOD's and forced tweaking, etc, is not fair or accurate. The reason I compared it to the x86 PC architecture (which by the way is much more than just Windows) is to highlight that the path Google took with this was based on a highly successful historical model.
It seems to me that about 1/3 to 1/2 of /. reads concerns someone suing someone else OR corporations suing over patents. I'm calling 'Bullshit' to all these lawsuits. That is what is wrong with America.
You can replace Android on many phones, but this too is akin to jail breaking. Android is open in principle, but not so much in practice.
I am not saying this to make it seem like they are no better than Apple, since at least with Android the source is available. The issue is the handset manufacturers and the service providers.
The other point is beyond techies, the average Joe doesn't care so much about openness, as long as the device works as described.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Oh I'm sorry, I thought I was posting in my browsers Slashdot tab, not the Yourmom tab, or I would have made my post more Yourmom-friendly
In all seriousness though, I'm assuming you mean Android is too complicated for older users, and hence they will be drawn to iOS. Here, I disagree. Android is no more complicated than iOS, it just offers more options, features, etc, for those who are inclined to explore them. If you never want to go into the Settings menu, that is your prerogative and you can still enjoy a full featured smartphone experience. Even beyond that, due to the open source nature of the platform, nothing is stopping any manufacturer from creating a dumbed-down version of Android for use on a very basic phone for the elderly.
Choice is good, for the industry, for the consumer, for the developers and for your mom.
For the average person this is no different than flashing your digital TV.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
First, you don't replace Android on an Android-based smartphone. You replace the Android ROM, flavour, use-your-word-here. It's all based on Android-source however.
Second, on the flagship Android phones, currently the Samsung Nexus S, the handset manufacture works directly with Android developers to make everything fully documented and compliant with the Android vision as set by the Open Handset Alliance. These phones are now available from major service providers and subsidized on contract, so they are much more readily available to average consumers.
Third, and again, this point seems to be lost on so many people, the average Joe doesn't HAVE to care about openness, his device will work as described without any special knowledge or tweaking. However, should he decide to explore, he can. Despite what Apple would have you believe, choice is good.
I you read this entire post you can officially claim to be a subscriber to greentshirt's newsletter.
Google played this one brilliantly, Android is here and the irony is delicious. Apple lost the original Mac vs PC war at the onset due to control-freak behavior. They guarded their technical details jealously, IBM did not, it became easier to write for IBM hardware, clones began to appear, etc, etc, etc.
This did not turn out very well for IBM, if we talk about them specifically. They owned the market in 1980 and by 1985 it had completely walked away from them to silicon valley. One could hope that someone could market a Android than Google, and turn that into an alternate platform to draw people to alternate services, true open services not the Big Black Box that is Google, but considering the way the OHA has organized the market this doesn't seem likely. It's basically a cartel to make sure an AOSP Android never finds major support or market traction in the developed world.
The alternate characterization also applies, namely, that Apple failed to reap Microsoft-level profits because it insisted on being an integrator and marketing to end consumers, instead of leveraging an open product to monetize closed products, and converting the PC userbase into a locked-in pool of service demand that could be funneled, at MS's whim, to software developers, advertisers, and service providers. And that these devs, advertisers and service providers became Microsoft and IBMs real customers, and the end user would get screwed ten ways from Sunday as long as the real customers were kept happy.
The parallels with the Android business strategy should always be kept in mind.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
And why on earth would you want to keep the default ROM on *any* Android phone?
Why on earth would you buy a device where first order of business is to replace the default ROM and default software?
I know this meets the needs of a small niche of people, but not for the phone buying populace in general.
> I saw this one Nokia phone that had a feature that Apple didn't come up with, which was to make the whole display a button that was clickable, so touching was one kind of input, and that was separate from clicking. I thought that was pretty cool.
BlackBerry Storm: The Novelty Wears Off Fast
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1860717,00.html
the first smartphone with a clickable touchscreen. I even enjoyed the few minutes I spent playing ... ... the novelty quickly wore off. I hate the click screen, and none of the handful of people I let try it had anything nice to say about it either.
But after 24 hours of actually testing the new BlackBerry side by side with its main competition
The entire point of Android is openness and flexibility. If you do not like the stock manufacture-themed flavor of Android on your phone, you can use an app like Rom Manager to change to a different one. Can you do that on an iPhone? In Soviet Russia, rhetorical questions ask you.
I know nerds have a difficult time understanding this, but *MOST* people like something that works well right out of the box.
And, your first sentence is false. The entire point of Android is a venue for Google to serve more ads. The only reason it's "open and flexible" is that were it more closed like iOS (hmm... where's the "open and flexible" Android 3.0?), Google would have a hard time developing and selling it.
On the other hand, make it open and the nerds will love it. Make it flexible and the carriers and handset makers will crapify it up. Make it low cost or even "less than free" (i.e., sharing ad revenue), and they can undercut Microsoft's offering.
It didn't work out well for IBM because they gave away the technical specifications of their core business offering. This would be akin to Google opening up their patents and search algorithms. Google have not done that, they have created a platform for their core business offering to thrive in. Very different.
As for your second note, yes, in the last decade Apple have done well. At one point, Myspace was also doing well. In the fast-paced tech-world, all it takes is one miss-step and you're relegated to historical marginalia. I think Apple got too greedy and thought they could continue market dominance indefinitely instead of including others. This was a massive miscalculation.
Finally, PC != Microsoft. I was discussing more the openness of the x86 architecture and the wide and varied hardware support it enjoyed than MS dominance. They are two very different things.
Out of the box, a Samsung Captivate running Samsung's Touchwiz Android can do everything an iPhone can do, as well as many things iPhone's can't (eg. Swype).
Out of the box, an iPhone outclasses Android.
If, however, you are inclined to explore, Android allows for that in a way that iOS does not. That is the point I'm making, so comparing modern android to Window's BSOD's and forced tweaking, etc, is not fair or accurate.
Then why was your long post almost entirely about how flexible Android is with regards to modification? Why are you now acting as though that's just a side feature?
The reason I compared it to the x86 PC architecture (which by the way is much more than just Windows) is to highlight that the path Google took with this was based on a highly successful historical model.
This is complete nonsense based on *one* example and lots of false assumptions. And it's especially ironic given that Apple's supposedly inferior model has them being the most successful player in at least three different markets, using the exact opposite model to what you think is the best one.
Tell me, what software feature that an iPhone has out of the box, does a modern Google android phone lack?
Choice is good, for the industry, for the consumer, for the developers and for your mom.
Choice is good. Quality is better.
The alternate characterization also applies, namely, that Apple failed to reap Microsoft-level profits because it insisted on being an integrator and marketing to end consumers
That's correct, but you got the reason for this wrong. It's because businesses were the primary computer customers of the era, and DOS PCs were better than Macs for business, even though Macs were more advanced systems. And in the less important (at the time) consumer realm, Macs were *far* more expensive than the Commodore 64, Apple ][, and Amiga (among others).
In the creative market (especially printing), Macs far outclassed any other system, and that was their biggest success during the 20th century.
Windows 95 onward maintained the PC's superiority in the business world, and extended it into the consumer world. It wasn't until the 21st century that Apple's products became superior choices for the consumer. This is also around the time the consumer market became the most important market.
And that's why Apple is now worth more than Microsoft and Intel combined.
There's a nice quote I read on a blog once: "Those who learn the lessons of history are doomed to try to repeat it."
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Tell me, what software feature that an iPhone has out of the box, does a modern Google android phone lack?
Tell me where I mentioned anything like that? I said it works right out of the box, not that it has any specific software feature that Android doesn't have. I'm sure such things exist (in both directions), but they are mostly irrelevant (unless you have a specific example in mind that is quite impressive) if the system is unappealing from a user perspective.
As a consumer, the Android system itself isn't terribly appealing. That's why your posts (and the posts of others) harp on about how extensible and "open" Android is. Because *that's* the thing that appeals to you. In that regard, iOS is inferior to Android. But the scope of that difference in terms of market share is extremely small. Very few people care about that.
Usability. And by that, I mean things like consistency, responsiveness, visual feedback, discoverability, natural interaction, visually appealing. iOS has it, Android doesn't.
Now tell me, since you seem to think this is such an important topic, what software feature does Android have, out of the box, than iOS doesn't? And explain why this is important to the average user. Your chosen example, "swype" is just a type of keyboard. It's a nice feature to be sure, and if it was consistently the sort of thing you could say about Android, it would be more like WebOS when compared with iOS, in that it's something that makes for a compelling alternative to iOS in terms of the OS itself.
But that's *not* indicative of Android as a whole. On the whole, Android is universally seen as clunkier, less consistent, and an overall mixed bag, compared to iOS. And it's really only the geeks who really don't mind such things.
And iOS has *much* more software available, including software that people actually *want*, like Netflix, Hulu, and Skype. On Android, those things come out later, and when they do come out, are highly limited.
Actually, my snarky point was that some implementations of Android don't 'just work'. True, it's easier to modify Android phones and customize them but that isn't the demographic that Samsung is going for. It's people like my mom who wouldn't know a boot loader from a sail boat.
And that is a big problem for Android - too many implementations are poorly done kludges. The incredibly odd part about this is the various modding groups have shown that it's possible to create a high quality product, but the big companies can't seem to be arsed to put enough effort to get there. You have to give Apple credit - they're pushing the customer experience farther and harder than anybody else.
And thanks for the tip on the Doro. My mom has a Jitterbug (actually a rebranded Samsung) but I'm not really overwhelmed with their system. I may look into it.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
As for your second note, yes, in the last decade Apple have done well.
I never made this point, my argument doesn't require it; I think what I said can prevail wether Apple is the largest tech company on Earth or bankrupt.
I'm not sure your argument about the "fast pace" of the "tech-world" are very airtight, considering the decade of missteps on the part of major players like Microsoft, and I'm not sure your rather brief (and typically moralizing) scenario for Apple losing dominance because of "failing to include others" is sustainable in the face of companies like Oracle and Nintendo, companies that share nothing, partner with companies in highly restrictive ways, only market end-to-end solutions and are still highly profitable and successful, with millions of happy customers.
Finally, PC != Microsoft. I was discussing more the openness of the x86 architecture and the wide and varied hardware support it enjoyed than MS dominance.
Eh... saying that "the PC" isn't the same as Microsoft is a hard line to draw, DOS and Windows were indispensable components of PCs, nobody ever successfully marketed an x86 PC with anything else back when this sort of thing was important, and today there's really only one company that mass markets x86 PCs that run something other than Windows: Apple. And while x86 was "open," the Wintel platform was decidedly not, and I don't think there's a useful distinction between x86 and Wintel, because nobody ever marketed x86 PCs with anything else, and the fact that the x86 ISA was open and documented didn't make a bit of difference to application developers, because applications require an OS, and today the application devs basically can choose between Windows and OS X, neither of which are particularly open.
The openness of x86 doesn't "rub off" on other parts of the stack, just as the openness of the Android hardware and OS doesn't rub off on the Google platform apps or internet services, which must rank among the most closed of all commercial closed sources today. Google won't even tell you what kind of computers they run search or docs on, let alone exactly what they're retaining and how they use it.
Finally, while we can all concede that Wintel was a far more open platform than Apple's, and this led to all kinds of positive feedbacks and network effects that allowed Wintel dominance in PCs of the 90s, my point is that this was not a good thing for end users. Microsoft became a lazy, anti-entrepreneurial company that lived off of monopoly rents and basically arrested all innovation in home computing for a decade. When the OS vendor stops caring about the end user and cares more about protecting their partner's business model, mediocrity is the result.
Microsoft's dominance was a direct, though probably not intended, consequence of IBM opening the x86 hardware platform; the openness didn't extend and wasn't useful to the end user, just to people with computer factories and their partners, the people writing OSs. And today, we find a nominally "open" Android that is basically nothing more than a dumb terminal for closed Google services and user metric aggregation -- the openness isn't to the benefit of the user, just to companies like Google, Samsung and Verizon.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Out of the box, an iPhone outclasses Android.
Argument by assertion. So compelling!
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Out of the box, an iPhone outclasses Android.
Argument by assertion. So compelling!
It might help your case if your "rebuttal" wasn't an assertion. Two, in fact.
Besides, I'm not sure what your issue with assertions is. They are at the very heart of any "argument". You'd be hard-pressed, really, to have an argument, or even a discussion of any weight or significance, without involving assertions. This particular assertion you quoted is an opinion. Unsupported factual assertions can sometimes be weak points in an argument, but opinions? Are you honestly trying to invalidate my opinion?
As for my opinion, what really matters in a discussion like this is how widespread it is. It doesn't take much observation to conclude that people tend to see the iPhone and iOS as outclassing Android. Even nerds don't generally try to claim otherwise. They tend to (reluctantly) cede this point and instead harp on about Android being "open" and how Apple is somehow going to find themselves repeating the Mac vs PC scenario (an assertion with extremely tenuous support).
Argument by assertion. So compelling!
Since your "counter argument" here is of exactly the same form, I am left only to consider which argument said something.
"Out of the box an iPhone outclasses Android" - a statement claiming that the iPhone works better than an Android somehow.
Your argument - meta complaint that the argument made is simply an assertion. Yes, and? You don't even offer an assertion. You don't even complain the assertion is wrong!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wow, now I feel dumb. I totally got drawn into some troll's journal when he referenced our thread. I knew he was a troll, but I did it anyway. Oh well. At least I didn't make more than one comment in the journal.
That's because I wasn't making a rebuttal - it's very hard to refute a point when your opponent hasn't made one.
The problem isn't with assertions - it's with assertions not backed up by any further claims or discussion. Look at the parent. He stated that "Out of the box, a Samsung Captivate running Samsung's Touchwiz Android can do everything an iPhone can do, as well as many things iPhone's can't". Great! Objective criteria! If you want to debate that, find things the iPhone can do. Make an argument that feature-set isn't the defining element of a product. Whatever. It can be debated.
"Outclass" has no objective meaning. Unless you elaborate further, it's just another way of saying "better". At that point, the argument devolves into "Android is better!", "Nuh-uh, iOS is better!". Under what criteria does iOS "outclass" Android? Intuitiveness of OS? Responsiveness? Integration with other services? Design? Give us something to build our debate on.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Assuming they live up to it.
Samsung is just like any other corp... You can't give them credit for what they say they will do until they actually do it.
Over time history has shown that open platforms tend to spur multiple 'killer apps'
The first application to be dubbed "killer app" was Visicalc, for Mac. Then there was Lotus 1-2-3, for the IBM PC, no clones around at that time. I don't think the "openness" of the platform has anything to do with it, "developer friendliness" might but that's a completely different matter (though they can overlap.) Look at Linux, self proclaimed kings of openness, where's the glut of killer apps for them ?
Tinkerers and garage companies have more access to Android development and that will lead to thousands of niche apps that won't be available on iPhone. Not to mention in-house software when businesses start to seriously explore integrating their smart phones to their existing in-house networks.
It seems every day there's a new story about someone doing something cool with the iPhone. People use the hardware they have to tinker with and an awful lot of people have iPhones. As to companies, Apple has the Enterprise Developer Program that allows distribution of in-house applications and enterprise mobile device management solutions. Something I'm not sure exists in the Android world.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
in your entire life.
Yes, it was a rebuttal. It was meant to dismiss my entire post by playing a "logical fallacy"-type gambit. You never asked for clarification (like you're doing now), you just acted as though I was making a spurious claim.
And yes, I pointed out it's an opinion. That's what it means when you say it's not objective.
As for elaboration, where would you like me to begin? Design, responsiveness, developer APIs, usability, aesthetics, integration with music and app stores, security, lack of malware, third party software, third party hardware... It would be easier to list the ways in which iOS *doesn't* outclass Android. That list is very small, and *very* geek-centric.
1. Open source (mostly... where's the source for Android 3.0?)
2. Multiple hardware vendors.
3. Side-loading of apps.
4. Untethered, PC-free synching (sort of a mixed bag right now between iOS and Android, which will change significantly with iOS 5).
I'm sure there might be something more, but that's fairly exhaustive. And like I said, these are things that appeal disproportionately to geeks. All of these combined don't amount to even the slightest consideration in the mind of most people.
As I said before, what matters in this context is how the general market sees the two systems, and the general market almost universally sees iOS as outclassing Android. That's why, in the tablet market, where carriers, geography, service plans, and subsidies don't significantly alter the market, iOS trounces Android.
Q1 2011
Android sales 37.3 million handsets
iPhone 18.65 million handsets and steady
In US, 49% handsets sold were Android, 31% iPhone
Just because you have the opinion that iPhone outclasses Android does not make it fact, no matter how many Apple slanted blog posts you read. I have both an iPhone 4 and a DroidX and I have to say you don't know what your talking about. I'd take the DroidX anyday of the iPhone, not just because of it's openness, but simply based on pure performance, ease of use and user experience.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
No, it wasn't a rebuttal. It was meant to spur you to actually provide an argument. As it is, it took two posts for you to even attempt that. You didn't present it as an opinion - you didn't say "I think the iPhone outclass Android" or "I'm of the opinion that iPhone outclasses Android" - you said "iPhone outclasses Android". That's presenting it as a fact.
Design, responsiveness, developer APIs, usability, aesthetics, integration with music and app stores, security, lack of malware, third party software, third party hardware
And again, you have a list features with no real discussion:
On to your other list:
And I'll further add customization and widgets - Android lets you configure your phone how you want it - from wallpaper to widgets - whereas iPhones are significantly less custo
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Forgetting stock for a moment though, using apps like Juice Defender to manager resource hogs, using a kernel that lets you undervolt and set different power regulators (eg, turn CPU to 100mhz when screen is off, etc) and making sure your application data-sync settings are set to realistic intervals will do magic for your battery life. In Sovie Russia, power manages you.
WTF, over?!?
Wouldn't you rather just, like, USE your phone/tablet, instead of having to do things the engineers of the product should have, like Power Management?
pple lost the original Mac vs PC war at the onset due to control-freak behavior. They guarded their technical details jealously, IBM did not, it became easier to write for IBM hardware, clones began to appear, etc, etc, etc.
Nice revisionist history there, bub.
IBM guarded their technical details (BIOS) every bit as jealously as Apple. However, a bunch of people reverse-engineered those secrets, and as a result, IBM eventually had to leave the personal computer market altogether...
Apple considers its OSes 'killer apps' in and of themselves and limit themselves accordingly. Over time history has shown that open platforms tend to spur multiple 'killer apps' Tinkerers and garage companies have more access to Android development and that will lead to thousands of niche apps that won't be available on iPhone.
Ah, the familiar mating cry of the Android fanboi: "Just you wait!"
Well, we've all been waiting. Where are all the drool-worthy apps? Ya know, the ones that make iPhone users go "Damn! I gotta get me one of those!"
[crickets]
And iOS has *much* more software available, including software that people actually *want*, like Netflix, Hulu, and Skype
I don't suppose you could give example software that are not totally irrelevant to people outside of the U.S.?
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
"And why on earth would you want to keep the default ROM on *any* Android phone?"
Avoiding violating your warranty for one thing. Using a well-tested phone and software setup together is a second good reason. The third reason is that not everyone is actually interested in messing around with Android ROMs. They just want a well functioning smart phone out of the box. In most cases I believe this is true for Android. However, I'm seriously regretting having suggested a Samsung android phone to my wife.
The only supported way of syncing this phone and upgrading the firmware in a supported manner is via Samsung Kies. And this software really is a POS. I've heard all the complaints about iTunes, but despite being a pig, it does actually work. It does the job. I've now tried to sync her phone on three different computers with either Kies or the Samsung PC Software suite and it simply will not recognize the phone. I've now given up and plan on returning the phone asap since it is still in warranty.
I've thought about Odin. But frankly, I don't have the time or the energy to be messing around with it.
I have a Galaxy S and it takes me less 15 seconds (most of the time less than 10 seconds) to have my GPS position after turning it on. Go to "Settings", "Location and security" and leave "Use wireless networks" to On (like it is with an iPhone). W
Except that 'GPS position' is not exact. (and sometimes it is way off, but my wireless carrier is to blame then)
Yes, it's fast, but it's not as precise as GPS. You can use it for 4sq, but forget it for navigation.
how long until
You WERE making a spurious claim ;)
Anyways:
"As for my opinion, what really matters in a discussion like this is how widespread it is. It doesn't take much observation to conclude that people tend to see the iPhone and iOS as outclassing Android. Even nerds don't generally try to claim otherwise. They tend to (reluctantly) cede this point and instead harp on about Android being "open" and how Apple is somehow going to find themselves repeating the Mac vs PC scenario (an assertion with extremely tenuous support)."
I'd love to know which nerds you talk to, perhaps we can see your sample data. Whilst the whole Mac vs PC argument is a silly one, you come across like a fanboy, simply because you make statements of iOS superiority with no backup in fact - that's what's getting a slightly hostile reception in this discussion. Sure, it's an opinion, and so your opinion can be as ungrounded in fact and reality as you want, but don't expect people to agree with it on that basis.
"And it's especially ironic given that Apple's supposedly inferior model has them being the most successful player in at least three different markets, using the exact opposite model to what you think is the best one."
I'd love to hear what these AT LEAST three markets are that Apple are apparently leading. Leading implies to me having the most market share - and the only one they have currently is tablets and possibly MP3 players, though I couldn't find any recent figures to verify this. They DON'T have the lead on smartphones, nor on PCs, or TV. I'm pretty sure that is the sum total of Apple's markets. Have I missed some?
Zuki: Technical Tomfoolery
and have made hundreds of billions of dollars with their innovations.
You are a sad, lonely, depressed little human who believes that you elevate your own pathetic little existence by openly mocking the accomplishments of thousands of engineers who have actually contributed something to humanity.
At least that's an objective statement that can be proved or disproved
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face