Durr.. I found the GP's comment interesting, since I went to considerable lengths to explain that the Android user interface can be completely changed by just downloading a new home app from the Market. That's something that a lot of Android users, I've found, did not know until I told them: they they go nuts trying out different GUIs until they find one that clicks. It's actually pretty cool, and is very much in keeping with the regular Linux world, where you have a selection of user interfaces from which to choose.
All relevant to computer scientists and nobody else.
Spoken like a true Apple fanboy. Surprisingly, I got a +5 informative mod, so I guess that means there are at least five computer scientists in the audience.
I'm sure the engineers would like to open source Maps and whatnot too. It's management/sales/lawyers that stop that kind of stuff from happening.
Not without reason, to be honest. Carriers still offer Google-branded phones (I have one, the T-Mobile G2) and they want to make sure that so-called "Google Experience" devices have some added draw. There may also be some things in there that they'd rather not give their competition a leg up with.
Obviously, you don't want a bunch of open-source hotshots coming up with a vastly more efficient version of Android so that people will be able to keep their older phones useful for longer: best to keep control of the firmware load so you can effectively obsolesce the devices at will.
... except that both HTC and Samsung seem very happy for customers to root their phones, and no other manufacturer that I know of has gone down Motorola's "extreme" bootloader locking path. Given the awareness of Android fragmentation in the community, it's not a great look for a manufacturer to be locking phones out of upgrades, anyway. Sure, it might work for the first phone a customer buys, but they're unlikely to remain loyal to the brand if the brand shuts them out and treats them like crap.
Yes, which is why I expect Google to reverse Motorola's ridiculousness. However, there's a difference between not working too hard to prevent rooting (which, I agree, was how Samsung and HTC treated the phones in the past in spite of carrier pressure to lock them down further) versus openly embracing the use of alternate operating systems. That's why I see HTC's bootloader SDK as a huge step in the right direction towards true openness and user choice. Ultimately, I would hope that rooting (and the use of third-party ROMs) can become as easy and safe as sticking your favorite Linux CD into your PC. Right now it's still something that's far too likely to generate a brick for the ordinary user, but there's no good technical reason that it has to stay that way.
I foresee a time when you power on your phone for the first time, and it gives you a list of the most popular ROMs and lets you download and install the OS of your choice automatically. Now that would be cool.
Law enforcement: when someone steals your stereo and sells it to the second hand shop, they'll have a record of who did it, and when someone buys it from that shop before you find out and can recover it, you can find it and get it back.
As if the cops give a shit about your stolen property.
Thanks for the LOL dude, Thursday was pretty boring up until this post.
No kidding. I keep telling them about all the cash that Goldman Sachs stole from me, but they just don't seem interested.
It's pretty much a fact Google sees the value in it, because their (perfectly valid and legal) initial decision to tell Cyanogenmod to stop bundling Google's apps (Maps, Market, etc.) soon turned into a "you know what, just download the bundle from us and it'll be fine"
Well, at that point he'd already made a few friends among their senior development people. I understand they weren't too happy with how it went down.
I saw Steve at the BigAndroidBBQ here in Austin, TX, earlier this month, and had a chance to speak with him in person, one on one. I also professionally work with one of the members of TeamDouche.
While Steve did say that they currently had no info on when/if they would release ICS , CM development is alive and well.
Well, a. that's good to hear and b. no reason to be testy.
It's certainly a very different strategy to Apple's response to jailbreaking (you may recall that they tried, unsuccessfully, to declare it illegal through DRM circumvention).
What I'm waiting to see is how Motorola handles rooting after the Google takeover. Their stated position prior to that was they they were going to do everything in their power to keep their firmware locked down... encrypted bootloaders and all that. Obviously, you don't want a bunch of open-source hotshots coming up with a vastly more efficient version of Android so that people will be able to keep their older phones useful for longer: best to keep control of the firmware load so you can effectively obsolesce the devices at will.
It's also interesting that HTC released a bootloader SDK. That's pretty damned awesome, when you get right down to it.
Well, I hope the Cyanogenmod project continues. Steve Kondik is now working for Samsung: what that will do to his priorities (and to what is actually allowed to do on CMx) is hard to say. I hope it goes on: that one project has advanced the state-of-the-Android-art considerably. For the past couple of years, I won't even consider a device that I can't root and put my CM on.
Cyanogenmod is just a temporary solution for a bigger problem, that the carriers/manufacturers lock down and hack away at their Android builds until it barely resembles the stock Android experience. Hence all the fragmentation, limitation of what users should be able to do with their devices, and it creates so many inconsistencies across brands/carriers. Cyanogenmod is just a response to that problem.
Actually, it was one man's hobby. The fact that it actually solved a problem is icing on the cake... and given that the Cyanogenmod group made some useful improvements to the code base didn't hurt either. I agree with you about carrier fragmentation, but that's not what really makes CM worth using.
Put it this way: the stock Android experience is, well... okay at best. Tolerable. Google could have done better, frankly. Personally, I run Cyanogenmod because I enjoy the stability and performance, both of which are considerably improved over the stock firmware. My G2's performance was adequate with the T-Mobile provided firmware (pretty much stock except for a couple of stupid apps) but I had to overclock it to get the performance I knew it was capable of. It also spontaneously rebooted itself on occasion, even after reflashing it a couple of times. With Cyanogenmod, I can actually underclock the thing and it's still smooth as silk. I've also had ZERO compatibility issues with it, which is remarkable considering that it's a third-party product. Some apps just wouldn't work right with the stock ROM.
As Steve Kondik himself said once, the CM group moved pretty far away from the original modding community, given that many of the folks who work on it aren't hobbyists, but are serious lead developers like himself.
If any commercial 7" tablet fits your needs, check some brands/models out there and create a custom version of Android + your app.
If it doesn't (probably not rugged enough, or the touch screen not bulletproof....) get them, strip them and modify them. If you are planning to sell more than 100k units and you have enough $, get serious, contact a factory and ask for some redesign for you.
In both cases, you can use a stripped android + your app.
OR you can start with something like this:
http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/get-your-own-open-source-touchscreen-device-for-69-2011023/
There are plenty of ruggedized, industrial PCs out there. This guy needs to spend a few minutes Googling this stuff. Forget Android: just run stock Debian or BSD on the thing and forget about it. Or even Windows Embedded, if you happen to swing that way (as Seinfeld said, "But there's nothing wrong with that!")
I think he actually said "not that there's anything wrong with that".
I believe you're right. But it's been years since I saw it, and I didn't consider it an important enough quote to Google. I attributed it, I figured that was enough.
This is FUD based on nothing. Google has said for quite some time that Gingerbread was available, that Honeycomb would be closed and only suited for tablets and that Ice Cream Sandwich would have the source available once it was released. Google was true to their word and everything for 2.x is available and 3.x is closed. The post linked to in the main article is the sources they are required to release (GPL) now that the Ice Cream Sandwich SDK is available. It should be noted that Ice Cream Sandwich itself as an OS has not been released and is not available on any shipping product. They've already said "We plan to release the source for the recently-announced Ice Cream Sandwich soon, once it’s available on devices." It's not available on devices yet.
CyanogenMod 9. They're skipping 8 because 8 was supposed to be for Honeycomb.
Well, I hope the Cyanogenmod project continues. Steve Kondik is now working for Samsung: what that will do to his priorities (and to what is actually allowed to do on CMx) is hard to say. I hope it goes on: that one project has advanced the state-of-the-Android-art considerably. For the past couple of years, I won't even consider a device that I can't root and put my CM on.
I thought it was Apple that had the Time Machine...
No. Apple has Job's greatest invention: The Reality Distortion Field, which they use to convince the faithful that they actually possess a Time Machine, among other things. Hard to say which would be more valuable.
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.
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).
Really? Even if the tablet is ARM based?
Yes. ARM based Windows 8 tablets should be able to run.NET applications without modification and native applications shouldn't need much more than a recompile.
So if you're an existing Windows developer, moving to Windows Phone 7 is piece of cake.
And if you're an existing Java developer, moving to Android is a piece of cake.
And if you're a competent developer, moving to any modern platform is a piece of cake.
Precisely.
Really, can you say "willingness to learn?" Sheesh. Yeah, there's a learning curve. There's always a learning curve. It's part of the job.
If you just want to learn something once and do the same exact thing for the rest of your natural life, well... programming probably isn't for you.
Pretending Android was not a close copy of iOs is silly.
Well, do keep in mind that Android was developed before iOS, and the Google bought that company to bring Android on board. So claims that Android "copied" iOS are kinda silly. But you are correct: now that both are out there there's a lot of cross-fertilization going on and that's just great for the consumer.
Android does have a leg up on Apple and Microsoft in that it is open source and there's an enormous level of third-party development going on. Some of the Android ROMs (like Cyanogenmod) are pretty remarkable achievements.
Of course, if the story just posted is true and Google isn't going to release the source to ICS, that I will have to stand corrected. And disappointed.
the one I used, you had to swipe across the screen to pick it up, that would not have been bad but the first time It was not what I was expecting, from them on out it would take a couple tries as you had to do it just right or it would snap back, so it was not just a wisk of the finger.
It was some HTC phone and at that point I said fuck it and just let it ring.
(mind you I have a old style flip phone with a durn button on it, and this was when our phones went out at work so one of the managers gave his work phone to us to use until the problem could be resolved)
You're talking about the lock screen. That's just a safety feature to keep the touch screen from being accidentally activated. Nothing to do with answering the phone as such, you just had to know how to unlock it. I run Cyanogenmod on my phone, and allows me to disable the lock screen entirely and use the trackball button to unlock the device. Much more convenient.
Ballmer simply doesn't get it. The people are clamoring for an open phone that can do anything
Generally speaking Ballmer is an idiot. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day. He's more right that you, that's for sure. "People" haven't got a clue what an "open" phone is. The reason Android is doing well is because people can get a "smartphone" for "free".
Now they can get an iPhone for "free"* too, we'll see if that changes.
(* They're still shipping iPhone 3GS, and it's "free" with a 2 year contract, just like cheap Androids are.)
Don't see Microsoft competing with either.
Fact is, Windows was perceived, for a long time, as a poor-man's Macintosh. And it outsold the Mac many, many times over. Now here's Balllmer claiming that Android is the Windows of the mobile phone world... yeah, he doesn't get it.
If he's such a wondrous business man, why have Microsoft's shares flatlined?
To protect an existing profit level higher than nearly any technology company that has ever existed. Corporations, like technologies, have natural life cycles. Plus, Microsoft is discouraged by law from exploiting it's entrenched monopoly in many ways it might have liked to.
Ballmer sucks in any event, without ignoring the first week of economics 101.
That, and the fact that once you've achieved some 90-odd percent market penetration there's really not anywhere else to go, at least in operating systems and office suites. Which is why Microsoft has been casting about, for some time now, in an effort to find something else with which to make money. No different than Google, which is trying a number of different things to augment its advertising revenue stream, in the hopes that one or more of them will eventually stick.
Where's the irony? Remember the VCRs that no ordinary people could work out how to set the timer. The cheaper, the more obscure and confusing the operation. The higher the intelligence needed to work out how to do it.
Hard to use is a typical quality of cheap, not expensive.
True. But a decent Android phone is comparable in price to anything put out by Apple or Microsoft (and in many cases, especially from HTC, the build quality is often better.)
Ballmer is, well... Ballmer. His lips move and I stop listening.
Slashdot Mirror
Hurrrrrrrrr
Durr.. I found the GP's comment interesting, since I went to considerable lengths to explain that the Android user interface can be completely changed by just downloading a new home app from the Market. That's something that a lot of Android users, I've found, did not know until I told them: they they go nuts trying out different GUIs until they find one that clicks. It's actually pretty cool, and is very much in keeping with the regular Linux world, where you have a selection of user interfaces from which to choose.
All relevant to computer scientists and nobody else.
Spoken like a true Apple fanboy. Surprisingly, I got a +5 informative mod, so I guess that means there are at least five computer scientists in the audience.
I'm sure the engineers would like to open source Maps and whatnot too. It's management/sales/lawyers that stop that kind of stuff from happening.
Not without reason, to be honest. Carriers still offer Google-branded phones (I have one, the T-Mobile G2) and they want to make sure that so-called "Google Experience" devices have some added draw. There may also be some things in there that they'd rather not give their competition a leg up with.
Obviously, you don't want a bunch of open-source hotshots coming up with a vastly more efficient version of Android so that people will be able to keep their older phones useful for longer: best to keep control of the firmware load so you can effectively obsolesce the devices at will.
... except that both HTC and Samsung seem very happy for customers to root their phones, and no other manufacturer that I know of has gone down Motorola's "extreme" bootloader locking path. Given the awareness of Android fragmentation in the community, it's not a great look for a manufacturer to be locking phones out of upgrades, anyway. Sure, it might work for the first phone a customer buys, but they're unlikely to remain loyal to the brand if the brand shuts them out and treats them like crap.
Yes, which is why I expect Google to reverse Motorola's ridiculousness. However, there's a difference between not working too hard to prevent rooting (which, I agree, was how Samsung and HTC treated the phones in the past in spite of carrier pressure to lock them down further) versus openly embracing the use of alternate operating systems. That's why I see HTC's bootloader SDK as a huge step in the right direction towards true openness and user choice. Ultimately, I would hope that rooting (and the use of third-party ROMs) can become as easy and safe as sticking your favorite Linux CD into your PC. Right now it's still something that's far too likely to generate a brick for the ordinary user, but there's no good technical reason that it has to stay that way.
I foresee a time when you power on your phone for the first time, and it gives you a list of the most popular ROMs and lets you download and install the OS of your choice automatically. Now that would be cool.
Other motive?
Law enforcement: when someone steals your stereo and sells it to the second hand shop, they'll have a record of who did it, and when someone buys it from that shop before you find out and can recover it, you can find it and get it back.
As if the cops give a shit about your stolen property. Thanks for the LOL dude, Thursday was pretty boring up until this post.
No kidding. I keep telling them about all the cash that Goldman Sachs stole from me, but they just don't seem interested.
It's pretty much a fact Google sees the value in it, because their (perfectly valid and legal) initial decision to tell Cyanogenmod to stop bundling Google's apps (Maps, Market, etc.) soon turned into a "you know what, just download the bundle from us and it'll be fine"
Well, at that point he'd already made a few friends among their senior development people. I understand they weren't too happy with how it went down.
Stop with the shitty speculation.
I saw Steve at the BigAndroidBBQ here in Austin, TX, earlier this month, and had a chance to speak with him in person, one on one. I also professionally work with one of the members of TeamDouche.
While Steve did say that they currently had no info on when/if they would release ICS , CM development is alive and well.
Well, a. that's good to hear and b. no reason to be testy.
It's certainly a very different strategy to Apple's response to jailbreaking (you may recall that they tried, unsuccessfully, to declare it illegal through DRM circumvention).
What I'm waiting to see is how Motorola handles rooting after the Google takeover. Their stated position prior to that was they they were going to do everything in their power to keep their firmware locked down ... encrypted bootloaders and all that. Obviously, you don't want a bunch of open-source hotshots coming up with a vastly more efficient version of Android so that people will be able to keep their older phones useful for longer: best to keep control of the firmware load so you can effectively obsolesce the devices at will.
It's also interesting that HTC released a bootloader SDK. That's pretty damned awesome, when you get right down to it.
Well, I hope the Cyanogenmod project continues. Steve Kondik is now working for Samsung: what that will do to his priorities (and to what is actually allowed to do on CMx) is hard to say. I hope it goes on: that one project has advanced the state-of-the-Android-art considerably. For the past couple of years, I won't even consider a device that I can't root and put my CM on.
Cyanogenmod is just a temporary solution for a bigger problem, that the carriers/manufacturers lock down and hack away at their Android builds until it barely resembles the stock Android experience. Hence all the fragmentation, limitation of what users should be able to do with their devices, and it creates so many inconsistencies across brands/carriers. Cyanogenmod is just a response to that problem.
Actually, it was one man's hobby. The fact that it actually solved a problem is icing on the cake ... and given that the Cyanogenmod group made some useful improvements to the code base didn't hurt either. I agree with you about carrier fragmentation, but that's not what really makes CM worth using.
... okay at best. Tolerable. Google could have done better, frankly. Personally, I run Cyanogenmod because I enjoy the stability and performance, both of which are considerably improved over the stock firmware. My G2's performance was adequate with the T-Mobile provided firmware (pretty much stock except for a couple of stupid apps) but I had to overclock it to get the performance I knew it was capable of. It also spontaneously rebooted itself on occasion, even after reflashing it a couple of times. With Cyanogenmod, I can actually underclock the thing and it's still smooth as silk. I've also had ZERO compatibility issues with it, which is remarkable considering that it's a third-party product. Some apps just wouldn't work right with the stock ROM.
Put it this way: the stock Android experience is, well
As Steve Kondik himself said once, the CM group moved pretty far away from the original modding community, given that many of the folks who work on it aren't hobbyists, but are serious lead developers like himself.
If any commercial 7" tablet fits your needs, check some brands/models out there and create a custom version of Android + your app. If it doesn't (probably not rugged enough, or the touch screen not bulletproof....) get them, strip them and modify them. If you are planning to sell more than 100k units and you have enough $, get serious, contact a factory and ask for some redesign for you. In both cases, you can use a stripped android + your app. OR you can start with something like this: http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/get-your-own-open-source-touchscreen-device-for-69-2011023/
There are plenty of ruggedized, industrial PCs out there. This guy needs to spend a few minutes Googling this stuff. Forget Android: just run stock Debian or BSD on the thing and forget about it. Or even Windows Embedded, if you happen to swing that way (as Seinfeld said, "But there's nothing wrong with that!")
I think he actually said "not that there's anything wrong with that".
I believe you're right. But it's been years since I saw it, and I didn't consider it an important enough quote to Google. I attributed it, I figured that was enough.
This is FUD based on nothing. Google has said for quite some time that Gingerbread was available, that Honeycomb would be closed and only suited for tablets and that Ice Cream Sandwich would have the source available once it was released. Google was true to their word and everything for 2.x is available and 3.x is closed. The post linked to in the main article is the sources they are required to release (GPL) now that the Ice Cream Sandwich SDK is available. It should be noted that Ice Cream Sandwich itself as an OS has not been released and is not available on any shipping product. They've already said "We plan to release the source for the recently-announced Ice Cream Sandwich soon, once it’s available on devices." It's not available on devices yet.
So why are we all still here?
Why do I even come here anymore?!
I ask myself that same question rather frequently. And then I come here again. And I write things.
Less often since I've been using G+ though.
For different meanings of "run" ... it typically takes at least 1-2 weeks to create a working AOSP-based ROM for the !Nexus devices.
Ha ... that might go faster now that Samsung has Cyanogen on board. Or he may be told to leave it alone. I dunno.
CyanogenMod 9. They're skipping 8 because 8 was supposed to be for Honeycomb.
Well, I hope the Cyanogenmod project continues. Steve Kondik is now working for Samsung: what that will do to his priorities (and to what is actually allowed to do on CMx) is hard to say. I hope it goes on: that one project has advanced the state-of-the-Android-art considerably. For the past couple of years, I won't even consider a device that I can't root and put my CM on.
I thought it was Apple that had the Time Machine...
No. Apple has Job's greatest invention: The Reality Distortion Field, which they use to convince the faithful that they actually possess a Time Machine, among other things. Hard to say which would be more valuable.
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.
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).
Really? Even if the tablet is ARM based?
Yes. ARM based Windows 8 tablets should be able to run .NET applications without modification and native applications shouldn't need much more than a recompile.
So if you're an existing Windows developer, moving to Windows Phone 7 is piece of cake.
And if you're an existing Java developer, moving to Android is a piece of cake.
And if you're a competent developer, moving to any modern platform is a piece of cake.
Precisely.
... programming probably isn't for you.
Really, can you say "willingness to learn?" Sheesh. Yeah, there's a learning curve. There's always a learning curve. It's part of the job.
If you just want to learn something once and do the same exact thing for the rest of your natural life, well
Xerox.. copy.. *hint* *hint* :)
Yah, ok. Dammit.
A = Alpha B = Beta
Apple Turnover
Banana Bread.
Pretending Android was not a close copy of iOs is silly.
Well, do keep in mind that Android was developed before iOS, and the Google bought that company to bring Android on board. So claims that Android "copied" iOS are kinda silly. But you are correct: now that both are out there there's a lot of cross-fertilization going on and that's just great for the consumer. Android does have a leg up on Apple and Microsoft in that it is open source and there's an enormous level of third-party development going on. Some of the Android ROMs (like Cyanogenmod) are pretty remarkable achievements.
Of course, if the story just posted is true and Google isn't going to release the source to ICS, that I will have to stand corrected. And disappointed.
the one I used, you had to swipe across the screen to pick it up, that would not have been bad but the first time It was not what I was expecting, from them on out it would take a couple tries as you had to do it just right or it would snap back, so it was not just a wisk of the finger.
It was some HTC phone and at that point I said fuck it and just let it ring.
(mind you I have a old style flip phone with a durn button on it, and this was when our phones went out at work so one of the managers gave his work phone to us to use until the problem could be resolved)
You're talking about the lock screen. That's just a safety feature to keep the touch screen from being accidentally activated. Nothing to do with answering the phone as such, you just had to know how to unlock it. I run Cyanogenmod on my phone, and allows me to disable the lock screen entirely and use the trackball button to unlock the device. Much more convenient.
Ballmer simply doesn't get it. The people are clamoring for an open phone that can do anything
Generally speaking Ballmer is an idiot. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day. He's more right that you, that's for sure. "People" haven't got a clue what an "open" phone is. The reason Android is doing well is because people can get a "smartphone" for "free".
Now they can get an iPhone for "free"* too, we'll see if that changes.
(* They're still shipping iPhone 3GS, and it's "free" with a 2 year contract, just like cheap Androids are.)
Don't see Microsoft competing with either.
Fact is, Windows was perceived, for a long time, as a poor-man's Macintosh. And it outsold the Mac many, many times over. Now here's Balllmer claiming that Android is the Windows of the mobile phone world ... yeah, he doesn't get it.
So, Ballmer speaks with authority from ignorance?
Who knew?
No, he speaks from ignorance in an authoritarian tone.
To protect an existing profit level higher than nearly any technology company that has ever existed. Corporations, like technologies, have natural life cycles. Plus, Microsoft is discouraged by law from exploiting it's entrenched monopoly in many ways it might have liked to.
Ballmer sucks in any event, without ignoring the first week of economics 101.
That, and the fact that once you've achieved some 90-odd percent market penetration there's really not anywhere else to go, at least in operating systems and office suites. Which is why Microsoft has been casting about, for some time now, in an effort to find something else with which to make money. No different than Google, which is trying a number of different things to augment its advertising revenue stream, in the hopes that one or more of them will eventually stick.
Where's the irony? Remember the VCRs that no ordinary people could work out how to set the timer. The cheaper, the more obscure and confusing the operation. The higher the intelligence needed to work out how to do it.
Hard to use is a typical quality of cheap, not expensive.
True. But a decent Android phone is comparable in price to anything put out by Apple or Microsoft (and in many cases, especially from HTC, the build quality is often better.)
... Ballmer. His lips move and I stop listening.
Ballmer is, well