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Ballmer Slams Android As Cheap and Overcomplicated
jfruhlinger writes "On the day Android Ice Cream Sandwich was released, Steve Ballmer livened up the Web 2.0 conference by lobbing potshots at Google's mobile OS, calling it the choice of 'cheap' phones and claiming 'the biggest advantage we have over Android is that you don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone.'"
Doesn't Windows have a lower TOC than Linux, according to Microsoft?
And you typed it all in less than a minute...
Windows Phone 7 will be not-cheap and not-complex.
This means it will be expensive and not do half the stuff Android does.
I get the impression Ballmer hasn't even used an Android phone. Exactly what part of the OS is complicated to use? Really, that's just an absurd, out-there statement.
Better known as 318230.
That sounds like same Ballmer who laughed at the iPhone because of how expensive it was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U
Same negative marketing smack talk. Also, enjoy the irony that expensive phones are apparently now good, and cheap is bad. (although, of course, cheap isn't the same thing as inexpensive - it really *is* good to be neither expensive nor cheap).
That's some first post. What are the odds you didn't have this astroturf typed and ready knowing this article would be posted? Pretty much zero.
Let's not forget; Ballmer isn't exactly fond of Google*. I'm not surprised he's got a mouthful of trash to talk.
"At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office," Lucovosky recounted, adding that Ballmer then launched into a tirade about Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google." Schmidt previously worked for Sun Microsystems and was the CEO of Novell.
[*] - http://news.cnet.com/2100-1014_3-5846243.html
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I think he refers to the "icon grid" UI paradigm. Most people who say that Android is like iOS mean that.
Windows Phone 7 UI is really well done.
If Ballmer meant that - and he probably did - then he should have said UI, not OS.
When people stop using the almost meaningless term "operating system", and refer to what they mean - kernel, UI, packaged apps, public API - there might be less pointless arguments about Mac vs. Windows vs. "Linux".
And, Windows 8 tablets will have the advantage of being able to run standard Windows programs if they want to (.NET apps should work even without recompiling).
On x86 tablets, it's not surprising, but their battery life and weight remain to be seen.
On ARM tablets, no, you won't be able to run .NET apps without recompiling, much less any random desktop app - as the only API supported for third-party apps on ARM devices is WinRT, anything that's not written to use that has to be refactored - and it's neither binary nor source-compatible to any current Windows APIs. Generally speaking, a Silverlight app would be easiest to port, but it's still not "just recompile and run".
Android is a copy of iPhone, but not that well done.
O RLY? So why is it that so many of the "cool new features" in iOS 5 are features that Android has had for quite awhile now?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
The UI that iOS copied from PalmOS?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Because Google uses a time machine. Each iteration of Android copies, imperfectly, features from future versions of iOS.
It's wise of Microsoft to go after the high-price, low-IQ market.
But Apple's already filled that niche... :O
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Or maybe the FP saw it in the firehose, like I and others did?
many times, I am critical of MS but I think the guy did not deserve to be modded down to 0 points.
I am gonna get (ice) creamed for this... but the ui is indeed well done, the way the os works to safegard against misbehaving apps yet allow flexibility is good, the developer tools are nice (it took me about hour to write a simple app - time to download visual studio included - and that time I ever touched .net), since it is .net not prisoner of one language, good tool developing visually, advertising is as simple as adding an ad control... they actually put some efforts into this.
Not sure if they'll get many developers interested in the marketplace at $99 a year unless their device sales pick up though.
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
I have a T-Mobile MyTouch 4g running Cyanogenmod 7.1 in my pocket right now. It's a very, very nice phone. I also have a friend who is looking to buy his first smartphone. He just wants the Internet in his pocket, and reading product barcodes to immediatly find reviews & prices interests him. No games or videoconferencing or anything fancy.
The main reason I told him to buy an iPhone is that if you go into a store to choose an Android phone there is no way to know if, when an OS update is released, you will receive it at all. The "latest-android" might be out, and you are wondering when you'll have it pushed to your phone. The carrier says to talk to the manufacturer, the manufacturer says they released it to the carrier, no-one knows for sure if you'll get it all. LG, Motorola, HTC, Samsung multiplied by T-mobile, ATT, Verizon and you have a huge matrix of possibilities and no-one can tell you before you choose a handset if that one will recieve OS updates, or how quickly.
Even folks on the same carrier but with different brand handsets see wildly different timeframes for updates.
I can update my Cyanogenmod myself, but he can't & shouldn't need to. He should just be able to walk out of the store with a smartphone and, when an OS update is released, just have it pumped into his phone right away.
Android phones are great for enthusiasts but for my friend & most other folks, the iPhone is a better choice.
"The biggest disadvantage we have is that nobody will touch a Windows phone with a 15 foot barge pole".
>Why haven't they fired the guy yet again?
Because of the amount of voting stock he owns. Remember that he was there from the absolute beginning in 1976. The only way he's leaving is by having a heart attack whilst throwing a chair or voluntarily retiring.
--
BMO
I don't think he does, he says stupid things fairly often. His mouth is like a font, with stupidity gushing forth. Given the dismal track record of previous Microsoft products that attempted to go up against the iPod (Zune), iTunes (MSN Music Store), and iPhone (Kin), their new offering will have an extreme uphill battle, and probably be abandoned just like its predecessors.
That'll be one major factor contributing to the new Windows phone's failure, it's hard to trust that Microsoft will stick with something when the going gets a little tough, and most people actually do learn when they've been burned by a vendor who sells them a bum product and then drops all support for it within months. Clearly, as CEO, he hasn't learned any lessons from previous dismal failures, either.
Because Google uses a time machine. Each iteration of Android copies, imperfectly, features from future versions of iOS.
I thought it was Apple that had the Time Machine...
"She's furniture with a pulse"
you don't need to be a computer scientist to use a
OK lets define "use" as making the computer bend to my will, rather than making me bend to the computer's will. In other words, I wanna install whatever software I want.
Rank the iphone, android, and windows phone in order of education requirements to jailbreak.
My very semi-serious research:
iphone is supposedly jailbreakable with like "click on a website" or something. Or at least it was. Then it either magically worked or was irrecoverably bricked. So I'd say this is roughly lower grade school level.
android takes all kinds of foolishness just to install cyanogenmod, but its well documented. You need about as much skill as it takes to bake a cake, which admittedly most of the marching morons can't do without setting the kitchen on fire. I'd say this is roughly college freshman level.
I don't think anyone uses windows phone so there is not much news out there. I'd say roughly PHD level because you'll be breaking new territory, using something no sane person has ever used before. Kind of like LSD in the early 60s.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
How is that job any different than sending spam emails?
Some people probably love sending those or at least composing them to get around filters.
I know it's common to bash MS on slashdot. I tried out a Windows Phone recently... Before grasping it I had a cocky smirk on my face thinking the phone would be complete trash. (I owned two windows CE phones before - hating them and getting rid of them quickly). I was pleasantly surprised using the phone and think it could be a real winner in my honest opinion. I have used Android/BlackBerry and iPhone and although the iPhone is a bunch of fun - I think the Windows Phone gets straight to the point and it's very (very!) responsive. I think Microsoft has a pretty good product here. Try one out before you bash. It may not be 'the best' but it's pretty respectable.
And I'm a whale biologist!
"you don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone.'"
My mom plays with my android phone when I go visit. She's about the farthest thing from a computer scientist I know. I still occasionally have to remind her how to move a file between directories (on Windows). She finds the android OS to be very intuitive, and would get one herself if she had any need for a smart phone.
Criticizing Android's faults is one thing, but descending into ridiculous hyperbole that no one in his right mind is going to believe is pretty stupid.
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
I've been using my first Android phone for a little over 2 weeks. I think on the whole the capabilities are brilliant but there are some real frustrations. It's still a lot less frustrating to deal with than Windows, and this phone was cheap.
My frustrations with Android /system partition /data and /system partitions, plenty of crapware on the phone I got which I then removed, but no easy way to repartition.
- Forced update of "protected" apps on the
- Default calendar without search? (Google is a search company!)
- Default opt in for sharing every detail about your life with Google
- Need to root phone to get full functionality and remove garbage protected apps
- Separate
- Only some apps can have some portion moved off internal memory. Many phones have very limited internal memory. There are kludges to get around this if you root the phone (such as link2sd, or apps2sd and Titanium backup moving apps to SD card even if not marked to do so, but some apps don't play well with these solutions and you still end up limited)
- Incompatibility between versions of Android
The upside:
- Google voice is impressive
- Heaps of apps, some very good. Lots of apps to quickly look things up - from guitar tab to identifying a song that's playing. Great travel and web apps. Apps that use your phone's GPS into a fully featured instrument, not to mention games.
- Familiar Unix commands, even a terminal on the phone
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
See? Google takes everything from them.
If he's such a wondrous business man, why have Microsoft's shares flatlined? Why, after spending millions of dollars over the last fifteen years can they still not build a web portal or search engine that garners more than a minority stake?
Ballmer is overseeing Microsoft's passage into dull corporate middle age, and Microsoft's still totally reliant on the core product base of Windows and Office that it was a decade ago.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This will never get modded up here, but windows phone UI is really innovative. Let's be sincere, android UI is very similar to Iphone, and very similar to blackberry too. A lot of icons, you push into one, and the app opens. How innovative. Windows phone UI is actually different, and beautiful.
And I don't work for Microsoft, nor I have a single windows install at home (or in the office) because in the desktop, windows sucks.
Give up already. You had the comment pre-written. WinPhone7 might be great, but if it is let it win on its merits not your astroturfing.
You can say lots of about a product and not be a shill, prewritten comments and promoting tons of product from one vendor at once is clearly shill behavior.
Look, you've been outed, and your posting history reveals what you are. Is there some point to continuing this idiocy? Do you think you're going to convince anyone?
It doesn't matter anyways. Microsoft once again is so far behind everyone else that even if their phones could get up and dance jig it wouldn't matter. Microsoft missed the boat by a couple of years or more. Nobody is going to give a crap, even if Ballmer and his weird little astroturfers like you are even right.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Judging from this article, it would seem that the folks at msnbc.com didn't get the memo from good ol' Steve.
The Internet are not only http and email.
But you sure will pimp any product they make, huh?
Just like Windows is still implementing features that Unix has had for decades. Microsoft has a time machine too, they just use it wrong.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The problem is that, like the HPs and such, when you start a tech company with engineers, then put in the "traditional" finance-based CEO, they burn the soul of the company for profits. And that is almost always a bad thing.
Learn to love Alaska
Metro *is* indeed innovative, and beautiful, but it's also very fragile. I was immediately taken by it, like you. I think a huge amount of respect must be given to the team that created something so different to everything else out there, whilst still working well. But sadly, not well enough for me. I found the interface to be too focussed on the zoomed/cropped typography and every app felt to similar and didn't get me thinking in "modes" which I need to do... in many ways it's not a GUI at all... it's a TUI (typographical user interface) and this is ultimately it's downfall... there's definately not enough design vocabulary outside of the type. And the tiles are easily destroyed with hideous work by 3rd parties...
... is another man's flexibility. This is the same company that apparently thought giving people access to basic file attributes was too complicated, and so removed and obfuscated them in Windows 7 to the point that yet another third party shell-extension utility is needed to make up for it. (What's worse is that the labeled "Read Only" box now doesn't actually represent JUST the read-only attribute any more, but now also combines permissions and/or sharing states in some confusing fashion that even I haven't yet figured out... which is kinda exactly the opposite of simplification.)
Or like trying to pay $33 billion for Yahoo?
A monkey could do a better job, and it would take less pay.
And I'm a .... whale.....
And that Palm copied from Mac OS, which presumably copied it from Xerox?
Xerox copied from itself :P
Why such a negative connotation?
I'm sure there are plenty of people that would love to have that job.
Do you also blame individual soldiers when the war is lost?
No, I blame soldiers when they obey illegal orders knowing full well that they are illegal.
Just like I blame astroturfers for performing unethical activities knowing full well that they are unethical.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Being a shill is nothing to be proud of. Besides shouldn't you be on the MSN online service? This Internet thing is nothing but a hobby or a toy since it is based on all that open source software.
As trolls/astroturfers go, he went too far. Dissing open source on Slashdot isn't bright, if you're trying to sound respectable here.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
And like clockwork, any post criticizing the shilling gets modded down. Quite the racket.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
h4rr4r - Shills everywhere are outraged that you compare LA to them. Shills shill for the thrill of the shill, but they do so with their own material. LA here is much worse, he has his own motivations that are beyond being a huge fanboy... Maybe LA really thinks these things, and truly believes it all... Maybe he's paid... Maybe he's not. Either way, that's the beauty of the culture here:
Without a solid foundation, based on facts and a hint of humility to admit that it is just his opinion, he's lumped in with the Fr1$t Ps0ts trolls. When a post sounds like a sales pitch (which frankly is exactly what I read there), it's not long for the /. crowd.
Plus, his SID is waaaaaay to high to be trustworthy.
you blog is wrong, it is comparing stock android to HTC modified android. The HTC modified android looks a lot different than the Google android on the nexus phones.
All these brainless comparisons of Android vs iPhone vs Windows 7 GUI styles are made hopelessly irrelevant by one simple fact: the Android user interface is completely changeable on a moment's notice by installing one of numerous third-party home applications. Right there in the Market: no tweaking, rooting or hacking needed. Just click and run: some of the best ones are even free! Even though both iOS and Android are Unix-derived operating systems at the core, one of the two locks you into what the manufacturer thinks is best for you ... and the other doesn't.
.. Regina 3D is good for that, "No way this is Android." "Yeah way". "No, no way.")
Hell, there are so many home apps in the Market (some of them are seriously slick) that there are several "home manager" apps that let you switch between them at will! To give you a better idea of what I'm talking about, currently on my rooted G2 I have ADW Launcher (the default for Cyanogenmod, my favorite Android ROM), ADW Launcher Ex (my current favorite home app), Launcher Pro, Go Launcher, Regina 3D (uses the GPU and is visually stunning) and a few others. I sometimes switch interfaces just because of what I happen to be doing at the time (or, ha ha, who I happen to want to impress
Furthermore, there are Android distributions that have completely rewritten user interfaces. There are several variants of the MIUI ROM: one of the more popular ones that is more iPhone-like in operation. Don't particularly care for it myself, but then again I don't particularly care for the iPhone. To each his own, I suppose. Regardless, it is utterly painless to give your Android device a complete GUI makeover in a matter of seconds. Consequently it's really, really hard to say that any phone's GUI is better than Android, because there are a ton of easily-installable options, many of which are very professional. I'm also tired of iPhone fanboys making cracks about "well, if I wanted to have to recompile my OS just to get my phone to work I'd have an Android." That's just pure ignorance (or spite) and belies the fact that Android really is pretty goddamned flexible, in ways that iPhone and Windows Mobile will never, ever be. Now, understand I'm making no claims about anything special about Android per se: it's just another smartphone operating system. What I am saying is that Android owners gain the many benefits of an open-source environment. Neither the iPhone or Windows 7 Mobile will ever be open. Period. End of statement. Do they have a "better" user interface than Android? Hard to say: which Android user interface are we going to compare against? Which version of Android? See the problem?
We may also be seeing an early trend by device manufacturers to start opening their boot loaders. HTC, for example, has actually released a bootloader SDK. That's a first, and it's amazing. I'd be willing to bet money that since Google now owns Motorola that that company will change its stance on third-party operating systems (I believe Cyanogenmod already supports the Atrix.) It's past time that handset makers start treating their products for what they are: general-purpose pocket-sized portable computers, and not dedicated black boxes of which they maintain ownership after they're sold. If this continues, it means that the concept of "rooting" will become a thing of the past, and that user choice in operating systems will become a reality. Not something that the likes of Microsoft and Apple ever want to see, but it's good for the consumer.
Speaking on a more general note about operating systems, one thing that generally stands out in the Linux world is the number of distros which are derived from a few older ones. Debian, for example, is the foundation for a number of other distributions (Ubuntu/Ku
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If the computing environment in South East Asia from were he claims to be is similar to the one in Latin America with a monoculture of Microsoft is not hard to believe that he is expressing his true, honest opinion. The neat thing of slashdot is its diversity of opinions, we should welcome opinions that go against the groupthink as long they are not trollish.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Why is it that every time Steve Ballmer comes up with sh*t like this he ends up being herring-slapped by the market?
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
I thought it was the Kool-Aid guy and was wondering which wall he burst threw while I wasn't looking. Well, he does have a pitcher of MS Kool-Aid, so it stands to reason, no?
I am not a complete hater. If they want to farm stupid people, please by all means do. Make sure they can call you instead of bothering me. Stupid people need bad products to burn them. It keeps them in line, and if they had smarter products, they might be successful and sweet Jesus, we can't have that! That would mean they might breed and produce even more stupid people. We have our quota of them already, damn it.
It's like a mechanic I knew once said when I asked him why in hell he was a Ford mechanic. He replied, "Fords break down all the time, they give me plenty of work." Face it, you can pay some bills fixing MS crap and helping idiots with their MS products. I would gladly play along with this evil conspiracy, but I hate stupid people. I have paid my dues to IT hell working help desks, and repairing PCs.
My philosophy is; "If you are too stupid to figure it out yourself, you shouldn't have it to begin with." I got my dear old Mom a computer. That got old real fast having to nurse her through noobie stuff. So I threw her off the end of the pier and told her to learn to swim or sink. (Metaphorically speaking of course) Aside from when she ripped the video card out of the mother board by accident, she has learned to fix her own self generated problems. Now I just have to listen to who's been on her Facebook every time the computer subject comes up. Christ! There is another product someone should time travel back and shoot in the head before it got off the ground. But dear old Mom is becoming a self sustaining geek, and I am proud of her. She is now plagued with her computer newbie friends who don't know shit about computers. Oh the vicious circle!
I cackle with glee when they tell me they were on the phone for two hours or so with tech support. It's like an adventure to them and some fresh hell for some low paid fool wishing he had the balls to blows his own brains out. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt from both ends of the spectrum. Don't worry, I get to take a bite out of my own karmic shit sandwich as well. I am a noob in the world of 3D CAD, getting aneurisms from math and design tolerances.
New level, new devil.
Oh, by the way MS troll, die in a fire.
Take the Red Pill.
An example of yet another "has been" ( tho obscenely wealthy "has been" i admit, but only due his friend Bill ) trying to cling desperately to old ways of doing business, instead of adapting.
Him stepping down would do Microsoft a world of good.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Oh please, didn't we end the neckbeard pedantry over what an "OS" is years ago? An OS is the software that comes with the device you buy. That's what it means when you talk about a phone OS.
So all of those free trial versions of software are part of the operating system? Symantec's antivirus is part of the operating system? Notepad is part of the operating system?
Bing lost Microsoft billions. Xbox also lost them billions. I seriously doubt they've even made up the initial losses with the Xbox 360. He really is a bad business man. He's mostly a "me-too" person without any vision.
Oh please, didn't we end the neckbeard pedantry over what an "OS" is years ago? An OS is the software that comes with the device you buy. That's what it means when you talk about a phone OS.
Well, considering that this is a tech site, frequented by people who do actually comprehend the difference, I'd say it's not moot. Particularly given that two of the major contenders here, iOS and Android, are both embedded Unix variants under the hood anyway. It's especially relevant when you consider that the GUI layer on Android (which is, as you say, what most people mean when they refer to an operating system) is not fixed, as with iOS and Windows. Alternate (and, in many cases, superior) GUIs are readily available in the Android Market. No different, in that respect, from any other major Linux distro: I mean, desktop Linux users can choose between KDE, Gnome, Unity, XFCE and a host of others. When you refer to "Linux", you really do have to be more specific. Refer to Windows or an Apple product and you can just say Windows, "OSX", or "iOS" and people know all they need to know.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
....mmmm the point I guess is that HE CAN'T.... its been none too obvious that MS has completely stagnated during the past DECADE. As an admitted stock holder of MSFT who is quite disappointed, I say this with all seriousness. Ballmer has got to go if MS is going to go anywhere itself...
you don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone.'"
True. You need to be a total idiot.
Really, Balmer, that was way too easy. You need to realize where MS is this decade: Nobody loves you anymore, and your monopoly is crumbling. You've done an excellent job delaying the downfall of MS, but as the company is a dinosaur unable to re-invent itself, playing the FUD card again and again and again will accomplish one thing: Using it up.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Apple is no competitor to anyone really - on the long term. They were there first 4 years ahead of everyone, which pretty much explains their dominant position today. But this is fading and pretty fast. In 10 years they'll probably hold 10-20 % of the market and nothing more. This is mostly due to their closed platform and their "one phone to fit them all" policy.
So, they're not a long-term competitor.
Today, however, they control roughly one smartphone out of two. Allowing them to do the new ActiveSync would mean that the new ActiveSync has a fair chance of catching up. Because if no phone whatsoever (no Android and no iPhone = no phone) can sync with the new ActiveSync, it is DOA.
So Apple is needed to cooperate in this scheme.
Write boring code, not shiny code!