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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.'"
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).
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".
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
>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
"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."
See? Google takes everything from them.
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.
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
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.
From the consumer's perspective, it doesn't matter where the crapware came from. If it's on the phone and it can't be removed, then you are stuck with a phone full of crapware, end of story.
And that simply doesn't happen with an iPhone. What's so hard to understand about that?
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.