I just read Jamie Hunter's piece "Why The iPhone Is Poised to Crush Android" over at androidguys.com.
Some people just don't get it.
My prediction: When the first Android phones make their debut, these same people are going to compare them to their slick/shiny iPhones and declare Android a failure.
And here's why they will be wrong..
Primarily, the iPhone and Android are two different things. The iPhone is a nice piece of hardware with some shiny core pre-bundled applications. Yes, with the release of their SDK, it's now also a platform, but it's restrictive. If the iPhone platform were a schoolyard playground for developers, the swingset is marked off limits, and there are teachers watching your every move, making sure you play by their rules.
Android, by contrast, is an unrestricted platform. No part of it will be sealed off, and nobody will be telling you what you can or can't do with it. There aren't any core apps, only reference implementations bundled with Android, likely to be replaced or enhanced by the carriers. There is no "gPhone". Android devices will be running the gamut from high-end PDA's to sub $100 phones. Seriously, how popular do you think the iPhone is going to be in China or India?
Allow me really hammer this point home. When you own an iPhone, you know that you own an iPhone. On the flipside, many people will be owners of Android driven phones and they won't even know it.
Why? Because every part of Android is replaceable. Two phones running Android under the hood can (and will) ship with completely different sets of applications running on completely different UI's.
It's a new business model, and that's what people are having a hard time understanding. It's going to be very comparable to modern linux, with independent entities creating, marketing, and selling their own "Android" distributions, much like we have dozens of different linux distributions today. Except this isn't a linux desktop with a huge learning curve, so the argument that these distros are going to be too complex for the typical consumer are over-hyped. The market just won't evolve that way. Competition will lead to better quality and better choices for consumers.
I'm just baffled how a blogging site that purports to being experts on all things Android can get it so wrong.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Understanding Android versus iPhone
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Jason,
You got it spot on. People in India want a phone, and they don't care if its i or g. Android will be happily running in the majority of the phone, i or not.
Posted a follow up piece of my own called "Re: Bad Op-Ed Titles" that you might be interested in.
Thanks for the clarification Scott. Provocative titles aside, the key point I'm trying to make is about the business model. Creating a software marketplace with QA standards is out of scope for Google.
Think nVidia. They don't make video cards, they make chipsets.
Google isn't making a mobile phone, they are building a mobile framework.
It's up to 3rd parties to build neat and clever software distribution channels with their own QA standards. SlideMe is a good example!
Very good discussion! Google is doing something quite different from the iPhone model. Android certainly has a better shot at capturing the low end, high volume of the market than Apple does.
Well put. I absolutely agree. I was a little baffled when I read Jamie's piece. I just don't see the correlation that so many seem to. That somehow Android and iPhone have the same intentions. They don't. Different platforms, different platform philosophy, different scalability, different target market, etc etc.
How a site called "Android Guys" could write an iPhone Fanboy article bashing Android is impossible to comprehend. They are complete idiots.
They didn't "bash" Android. They said Google could learn from Apple's plans for certification and regulation.
Read the article.
My fault with the piece is the inflammatory headline.
Post a Comment